

Class 

Book ..vV 

Copyright N? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 








THE gunner’s face GREW BLACKER AND BLACKER WITH ANGER, FOR 

THE SERGEANT WAS WINNING. 


The 


Bible Punchers 


By ^ 

E. C. RUNDLE WOOLCOCK 

i i 


Authorized American Edition 



leUNIONPfESS 

Philadelphia. 


•1122 CHESTNUT STREET- 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Rocaived 

JUN 26 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS XXc. No. 
S~ ^ ' 2 -<^ 

COPY 8. 


Copyright, 1903, 

BY 

THE AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 


Published, June, 1903. 


FOREWORD. 


The Bible Punchers was a nickname given 
to some Christian soldiers by their British comrades. 
The book grew out of many years of successful re- 
ligious work by the author among English soldiers. 
It gives a graphic picture of the temptations of the 
soldiers’ life, especially in Great Britain. It presents 
clearly some interesting and effective efforts to help 
these men, in times of peace, to higher moral purpose 
and to become true soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Soldiers’ Homes in America are chiefly for dis- 
charged and invalid soldiers. They offer no help 
or comfort to men in camp, in transfer between gar- 
risons, and on active duty. But those suggested in 
this book are for men on garrison duty, and en route 
to army posts in periods of peace. In these condi- 
tions the American soldier, also, needs sympathy 
and help. 

While everything is provided for a thorough mili- 
tary training and support of our soldiers, and in war 
time, lint, literature and love are bestowed without 
stint, yet in periods of peace the military man is left 
3 


Foreword. 


largely to take care of himself. He surely has a 
right to look for sympathy in the struggles of his 
moral and religious life, and he ought to be helped 
against the temptations incident to his camp, garri- 
son and barrack life, when on, and off duty. 

The American publishers, therefore, have secured 
the right to issue this book, in the hope that it will 
stimulate Christian people to provide similar safe, 
near-by places of resort for the American regu- 
lars,” the National and State guards, city police, 
members of fire and hose companies — places pro- 
vided with hot coffee and refreshments, free from 
temptations to intoxicative drinks, and where good 
literature, comfort, the gospel, and Christian in- 
fluences will saturate the atmosphere in which they 
dwell, to sweeten their lives, strengthen their char- 
acters, and inspire their souls to patriotic and noble 
deeds. Thus may they more worthily serve their 
Country and their God, and having fought the 
good fight” and finished their course, may have a 
sure hope of the Crown laid up for them by the 
Great Captain of our Salvation. 


4 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGS 

Foreword to the American Edition 5 

I. “Limber Up!” 7 

II. “Halt!'* 13 

III. Billeted 19 

IV. The Defaulter 24 

V. A Recruit 31 

VI. “He Went for a Soldier” 46 

VH. The Home of Tommy Atkins 54 

VIII. Attack 66 

IX. Surrender 75 

X. “The Girl I Left Behind Me” 84 

XL Fallen by the Way 91 

XII. The Plan of Campaign 97 

XIII. Not on the Strength 109 

XIV. Forward I” 12 1 

5 


Contents. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XV. Officers to the Front 132 

XVI. The Leader" in the Rear 140 

XVII. All's Well 156 

XVIII. Tactics 162 

XIX. Victory 174 


6 


THE BIBLE PUNCHERS. 


CHAPTER 1. 

LIMBER UP ! ” 

The Route has come/’ 

‘‘ What ! ” from one artilleryman. 

You don’t mean it! ” from another. 

** But I do. We are off in a day or two.” This 
from the bombardier who had spoken first. 

“ But where? ” questioned several voices. 

Where ? — to Misterford,” Bombardier Holt re- 
plied, in a disgusted tone, ‘‘ and the battery from 
there comes here.” 

“ Then I should like to know how we shall get on 
there without the Home ? ” Driver Dane was the 
speaker, and he had evidently cast a bombshell into 
the midst of the group of men, called by their com- 
rades the Bible Punchers, who were standing to- 
gether talking in the barrack-yard that hot July 
afternoon. They were all so silent after Driver 
Dane’s question that one could almost hear their 
hearts’ pulsation. 


7 


The Bible Punchers. 


“ In a few months we shall be as bad as we were 
when we first came here; that’s how we shall get 
on.” It was Holt who spoke. ‘‘ Misterford is a 
very hell for soldiers,” he went on ; and then 
there’s the march — a fortnight of it — and the billets 
at the worst public-houses on the road. I tell you 
what it is, you fellows ; we had better make the best 
use of the Home now we’ve got it. I vote we go 
down there now. Perhaps, things won’t look so bad 
when we’ve talked it over down there.” 

“ They look black enough now,” said Dane. 

Have you got the halts ? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” Holt replied ; about the worst places 
we could have.” 

“ Well, come on,” said another. 

And so the group of artillerymen with one accord 
turned toward the barrack-gates and passed into the 
road. Then they set off almost at the double to get 
to the Home, standing at the bottom of the hill 
which they had to descend. 

Lois Darrell, standing at the window of the little 
prayer-room in that Home, seeing the men coming 
so quickly down the hill, felt by intuition that the 
news she had feared to hear in connection with these 
young Christians had at length arrived. 

Some few months ago these men had been re- 
cruited for the army of the King of kings — ^babes 
in Christ, hardly able to crawl, stumbling over diffi- 
culties every day, untaught in Christian truths as 
8 


“Limber Up !” 

yet, and, as one man, who conveyed the thoughts of 
the others, said — 

You see, it’s so hard to be good, and if we fall 
back at all into the old ways, why, all the men are 
down on us, and tell us it’s no good trying. Then, 
if there’s no one to tell us that we must just try and 
try again, why, it’s so easy to give it all up. 
I seem to be always forgetting and sinning. I’m 
afraid I shall never make much of a Chris- 
tian. 

That was the sort of material which was to be 
sent off on march ” to Misterford, where every 
soldier, as yet, had been considered a curse to the 
place, simply because no one had taken the trouble 
to try and put stumbling-blocks on their downward 
road. 

There was a sound of feet coming up the stairs, 
and in another moment the blue-coated artillerymen 
were in the room. They were followed by other 
soldiers in various uniforms, and all very much ex- 
cited. From the many voices it became clear at last 
that the battery was off in a day or two. All told 
the news that the Route had come. 

To Misterford, too,” said one of the bluecoats, 
a lad of seventeen or eighteen years, who had 
turned to the right-about, as he put it, a week be- 
fore. He was a Scotch laddie, Frazer by name, the 
only son of his mother. In no sense a wild laddie, 
but a rollicking, mischievous one; a great favorite 
9 


The Bible Punchers. 


with his comrades, but, as they said, Under that 
brute of a sergeant-major he hasn’t much chance; 
he’ll knock his religion out of him in no time.” 

Oh ! I am sorry, I am sorry.” And as Lois 
Darrell spoke the men ceased talking. ‘‘ What are 
the halting-places, and when do you go ? ” 

“ Day after to-morrow,” Holt said ; “ I’ve written 
the halts down on this bit of paper,” giving a slip 
into her hand. 

She took it, and sat down. 

“ And now we must plan something, and I think 
I must do that alone. At any rate, we will have a 
tea to-morrow night, and a good farewell. And you 
Bible Punchers ” — smiling as she said those words — 
‘‘ must remember that the great Captain will go with 
you, and that the King of kings has promised, ‘ I 
will uphold thee with the right hand of My right- 
eousness.’ Our prayers will follow you; you all 
know that.” 

“ But it’s just remembering I can try again when 
I do wrong that I can’t remember.” It was the lad 
Frazer who spoke, and he laid such emphasis on 
the can’t ” that the men all smiled in spite of them- 
selves. 

Then Holt voiced them all when he said, “ Frazer 
has hit the mark. Before I know what I’m about 
I’ve done something I know I oughtn’t to, and then 
I feel so ashamed that the others have seen me fall, 
that it seems to knock the heart out of me, and I 
10 


“ Limber Up ! " 

don't remember Tve got to be forgiven and to try 
again." 

‘‘So I suppose when you have made up your 
mind to climb to the top of a very steep and difficult 
mountain, if you tumble, you must just let yourself 
roll down to the bottom again ? Is that it ? " 

There was a smile from all at this, but Lois, un- 
heeding it, went on — 

“ And so, if soldiers are defeated by the enemy 
in battle, they must just retreat and give up? Is 
that it, too? Oh, well, British soldiers don’t do 
so, do they? I fancy a defeat would make them 
all the more anxious for another battle, and I don’t 
think the enemy would be victorious a second time. 
Do you see what I mean? The steeper the moun- 
tain, the harder the climb, the more you will fall, 
and as often as you fall you can get up again, as long 
as you keep to the path, and your hand in the 
Guide’s. For our Guide never stumbles, and never 
lets go a hand. It is a stiff climb up a high moun- 
tain to get to heaven, but when you fall Jesus is 
always ready to pick you up again, and to bring you 
to the summit, if you will only let Him.’’ 

Simple talk, but the men understood it, and it 
cheered them ; and then they all went into the meet- 
ing, and ended up the evening with singing and 
prayer. 

And Lois Darrell went to her room to think and 
plan meetings and welcomes for the men at every 
II 


The Bible Punchers. 


halting-place on the way to Misterford. At several 
of these towns were friends whom she knew would 
help. To these she wrote, telling them all she could 
of the Christian soldiers, and asking for their assist- 
ance in helping the men to fight the good fight of 
faith. Then she hoped and prayed and thought, 
until at last her plan of action, at any rate for the 
first stage, was complete. 


CHAPTER II. 


The farewell tea was over, good-byes had been 
said at the Home, and the morning had dawned — 
^ gray, cheerless morn, looking very like rain. The 
guns (limbered), drivers, horses, bombardiers, and 
men were all ready in the barrack-square. The offi- 
cers were in their places, too, waiting for the order 
to start. Of course, there was the usual crowd to see 
the soldiers off. 

The Bible Punchers were conspicuous by the ex- 
pression on their faces. They had heard no word 
more of the plans which the lady of the Home said 
she would make. She was not there to see them off, 
but they would look at the bright side of things, and 
had confidence that she would keep her word. 

They look a bright lot, them Bible Punchers, 
don’t they ? ” said one man to his neighbor on the 
next horse ! “ I’m blowed if they don’t have the best 
of it after all.” 

The speaker was leaving a wife and three chil- 
dren behind him, not on the strength,^ and how he 
was ever to see them again he couldn’t tell ; he had 

1 See Chap. XIII. 

13 


The Bible Punchers. 


not the money to pay their train fare from this sta- 
tion to Misterford, and he was quite certain his 
wife hadn’t either. He should save it up and send 
to her in time, he supposed, but it would take a good 
bit of saving, and a precious long time. 

There was a slight stir. The order had been given 
for the start, and in a second or so more guns, horses, 
and men were disappearing in a cloud of dust down 
the road. 

The crowd turned away ; in it were many women 
and children off the strength, some of whom would 
give up in despair, whilst others would manage, 
by hook or by crook, to get to Misterford somehow. 

Just as the battery disappeared from the town, a 
train shrieked out of the station, carrying amongst 
the passengers Lois Darrell. She had written to a 
friend living in the town at which the first halt was 
to be made, and having received no answer, she was 
going on to that place by train to make arrange- 
ments, and to find out why this silence. 

She arrived at her friend’s house to find him away. 
The rain was coming down in torrents now, and 
things looked dismal, and she almost felt in de- 
spair. 

A battery of artillery would enter that town in a 
few hours; there must be a meeting for them; if 
possible a tea; her friend was away, and she knew 
no one else in the place. 

However, off she went to the post-office, and 


“ Halt ! 


found out the address of a Wesleyan minister. He 
also was away, but his wife was at home, and to her 
the new-comer confided her difficulties. “ Would 
she help ? 

Yes, willingly,” was the answer. “ There were 
always soldiers halting at the town, and never any- 
thing done for them, and they generally managed to 
demoralize the servant girls. Perhaps a meeting 
would stop that kind of thing. There was the so- 
ciety steward, Mr. McDonald, living not very far 
away — perhaps he could help them.” 

So to him they went, and he fell into line at once. 
He would see that a room was ready in which the 
men could smoke and read, and another one filled 
with forms for the meeting; but about the tea — 
there he paused. 

Mrs. Bate, the minister’s wife, however, filled in 
that pause. 

“ I will get some ladies to help, and we will see 
to that,” she said. And so the matter was settled; 
tea to be ready at six o’clock. 

The rain cleared off about three o’clock, and as 
the clocks struck the hour, a rattling, lumbering 
sound, mingled with the sound of horses’ hoofs, was 
heard by the townsfolk, and in a few moments more, 
with a great clatter and noise, the battery entered 
the town and halted in the Market Square. 

Now, it happened that on the very first horse there 

15 


The Bible Punchers. 


rode a Bible Puncher — that same Frazer, by the 
way — ^and he was generally pretty wide-awake. So 
it was no wonder that he should at once catch sight 
of a face in the crowd of people who had come out 
to look at the soldiers, which most of the men in the 
battery knew. It was he who sent back the whisper 
first, which soon passed from end to end of the bat- 
tery — 

Why, there’s Miss Darrell. There’s the lady 
from the Home.” 

Wet and miserable and mud-besplashed though 
they were, it was wonderful how the countenances of 
the men altered. 

There was a sudden roaring out of an order, and 
in a moment the drivers were off their horses, the 
men had left their uncomfortable positions on the 
guns, and those formidable articles of warfare were 
unlimbered. 

Then came the giving out of the billets. 

“ Smith, Philips, Jenkins, Brown, Webster, Si- 
mons, Roberts, Frazer — the Blue Pig.” 

“ Deacon, Holt, Bennett, Robson — the Green 
Man.” 

And so on, and so on, until all the men had been 
told their quarters for that night. Sentries were 
posted; the officers went off to headquarters, viz., 
the principal hotel in the place, and the men took 
themselves and their horses to their billets with as 
little delay as possible. 

i6 


“ Halt ! 


The Bible Punchers got their word of greeting 
from Lois Darrell and Mr. McDonald, who had 
come with her to see the men arrive, and, save for 
the sentries and the few curious men, women, and 
children gazing at the big guns, the square went 
back to its normal condition again. 

Lois Darrell and Mr. McDonald made tracks for 
the police-station, and saw the inspector. 

You want the billets, Mr. McDonald,’' said this 
official, when he knew their errand. “ I can give you 
the list with pleasure. Speaking for myself and men, 
we shall be only too thankful if you can get the mili- 
tary to come to the meeting ; for, billeted as they are 
here, they have every opportunity to take too much 
themselves, and to cause the civilians to do the same. 
I don’t like the soldiers coming here at all. We have 
had no end of trouble already this season with them. 
Several lots of them have been billeted here lately, 
and the publicans have thriven as the result. You 
see. Government forces them to give each man so 
much food and drink. In nine cases out of ten the 
men want more, and for this they pay — exorbitantly 
too ; and as, after the soldiers’ work with their horses 
is done, they can only loaf about the town or stay in 
the publics, they have plenty of opportunity to drink 
and get into other mischief. It’s my belief that the 
publicans put something in the beer to make the men 
more thirsty, for they must drink a precious lot more 
than their allowance, as the publicans seem to like the 

17 


2 


The Bible Punchers. 


men being billeted on them, and they most certainly 
do grow rich at their expense.’^ 

The inspector gave them the list of houses at 
which the soldiers were quartered, and, with a 
Good-day,” went back to his work and they to 
theirs, which was to go the round of the billets.” 

Just as they were leaving the police-station, how- 
ever, the superintendent of police came up on his 
return from a round of visitations. He saluted Mr. 
McDonald, and, on hearing for what reason he had 
come, exclaimed — 

I wish you every success, sir. This billeting 
business worries me greatly about this time of the 
year. The town itself gets demoralized somehow 
or other whilst the soldiers are about. Many of them 
seem decent sort of chaps, too. But I do believe the 
publicans reap enormous profits at these times. 
What with the treating the men get by civilians, and 
the extra drink Tommy Atkins gets for himself, 
they thrive well, to the detriment of the town. I 
wish the billets could be at other places than at these 
public-houses; that I do.” 


CHAPTER III. 


BILLETED. 

Some of the men billeted at the Blue Pig were 
sitting in the bar parlor, smoking and drinking. 

It was as dirty-looking a place as you may wish 
to see; a few smoke-begrimed engravings of race- 
horses hung upon the walls, which might have been 
papered a quarter of a century ago — ^but that 
‘‘ might have been is very doubtful. 

There was a quantity of dirty sawdust on the floor, 
and the room contained several forms, one or two 
chairs, and a table, on which pewter pots and to- 
bacco jars were standing. 

Driver Frazer was standing in this room, having 
finished his allowance of bread and cheese. He had 
not touched his ** regulation beer.^’ And to him 
danced up a tawdry-looking waiting-maid. Now, 
Frazer was thirsty, so he asked this damsel — 

Can I have a glass of water ? 

The girl stared at him in amazement. Such a 
request as that had not been proffered to her in that 
place before — that fact was certain. 

But she went off in her difficulty and told Boni- 

19 


The Bible Punchers. 


face himself. He was standing beaming with delight 
at the other end of the room. 

And he answered, still smiling, “ Certainly, my 
dear. We always keeps Adam’s ale, but we always 
charges for the use of the glass. It’s threepence, 
mind ; we don’t want no teetotalers here.” 

Presently the girl returned to Frazer with a glass 
of thick, muddy-looking stuff in her hand. 

It’s threepence,” she said, as she gave it to him. 

** Call that water ? ” he queried. “ Threepence for 
that stuff? You don’t catch me paying it, or drink- 
ing it either.” 

‘‘ You can take it or leave it,” said the publican, 
who seemed to have his eyes, and ears, too, in all 
corners of the room at the same time. ‘‘ But you 
ordered it, and the girl fetched it, and I’ll 
thank you to pay the coppers. Privileges ’as got to 
be paid for;” and he winked at the rest of the 
men. 

Frazer, seeing all against him, put the coppers on 
the table and walked out of the room, followed by 
a loud laugh from his comrades. 

He’s a young fool,” one of them said to another, 
sotto voce — they had both been Band of Hope boys 
once upon a time. “ It’s no good trying to get water 
in these places ; far better to make the best of things, 
and drink what’s allowed us. Now he’s got the 
publican against him, his life won’t be worth much 
till we get away from here.” 

20 


Billeted. 


And at the door Frazer met the lady from the 
Home and a gentleman. 

Frazer was, as we said, a Scotch laddie, and be- 
lieved in ** canniness and the reverse. Desperate, 
and inwardly raging with passion, he thought it just 
a bit of “ canniness that at that moment he 
should have held out to him “ a brither Scot's " 
hand. 

The new-comers entered the bar parlor, and Mr. 
McDonald spoke to “ mine host." 

‘‘ You want to ask the men down to a tea-meeting 
to-night? Umph. Well, yes, the lady may ask " — 
with a sidelong look at the lady — “ but I doubt if 
the invitation will be accepted. The men are in very 
comfortable quarters here." 

Some of the men did not seem very comfortable, 
all the same. They seemed almost electrified by 
the appearance of the lady, and tried to hide them- 
selves behind other comrades. They all knew her 
by sight, but the two or three who had been to the 
Home were very anxious not to be recognized — 
that was an assured fact — while the others behind 
whom they tried to hide were indifferent — until she 
spoke. 

The invitation Lois gave was quite short and to 
the point, and not in the least degree could “ mine 
host " take umbrage at it. 

‘‘ Would they all come to tea at the Temperance 
Hotel in the town? There would be a meeting af- 


21 


The Bible Punchers, 


terwards, but to this none of them need stay unless 
they cared to do so” 

That was the gist of the invitation, and it being 
given, Lois and Mr. McDonald left the bar parlor to 
its old occupants. 

The men were a little staggered just at first, for 
the publican burst into a loud laugh, as soon as the 
unusual visitors had departed. 

That goes beyond a joke/' he exclaimed ; as 
if you fellows want a charity tea. They've got some 
cheek to bring their invitations here ; " and he 
laughed again. 

But this speech just brought the wavering men to 
a decision. Their sense of chivalry was touched. A 
lady had given the invitation — their lady from the 
Home, who had done all in her power for their good 
at Fordham, the station they had just turned their 
backs on. 

That's the goody-goody sort she is ; I know the 
kind," the publican went on. “ She thinks to turn all 
of yer into saints and " 

But here a soldier interrupted him. 

Look 'ere, we can’t stand that talk, you know. 
That lady is our lady from the 'Ome, and you'd bet- 
ter 'old your jaw, if you want to say aught about 'er. 
Come on, you fellows. I vote we all go down right 
away." 

And thereupon the men with one accord began to 
get ready to leave the publican alone in his glory. 

22 


Billeted. 


Whereupon the angry Boniface used strong lan- 
guage indeed; and for the rest of the evening the 
barmaid and customers had a very bad time, for he 
vented his spleen upon those innocent victims, and 
he did not omit to make the soldiers as uncomfort- 
able as possible for that one evening during which 
they remained at his hospitable house. 


23 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE DEFAULTER. 

Lois and her companion went direct from the bar 
parlor to the stables, where were still several drivers, 
grooming their horses, although most of this work 
had been finished. 

It was just an ordinary stable scene, but the quick 
eye of Lois Darrell, accustomed as it was to take 
everything in at a glance where her soldiers were 
concerned, had traveled down to the very end of that 
stable and singled out a soldier who had backslidden ; 
he was vainly trying to hide himself behind his 
horse, for his eye had seen her at the stable door be- 
fore his comrades raised the shout of — 

“ ’Ere's the lady from the ’Ome.'' 

All the men here knew her, and she knew them. 
So it was a case of shaking hands with each of them, 
and of giving personal invitations to them all to the 
tea, and the meeting afterwards, at six o’clock, 
which they accepted with alacrity. At last she came 
to this last man. 

I am so glad to see you again. Philips,” she 
said ; and the soldier addressed had no other resource 

24 


The Defaulter. 


than to take her hand when she proffered it, as his 
comrades had done. 

** We missed you so much from the meetings,” 
she went on. “ What made you keep away ? ” 

Philips hung down his head just a very little, 
and fussed away at his horse. 

But a comrade answered in his stead, Roberts by 
name, one of the Bible Punchers. 

'Twasn’t exactly his fault, miss,” this man said 
— he was very busily brushing his horse in the next 

stall — “ It^s that ” But here he stopped. As he 

himself said, “ It’s so natural for me to use a bit 
of that kind of language. I’m always forgettin’ my- 
self.” I mean it’s that old ’ippercrite Fisher. I 
wish ’e’d get to ^ kingdom come ’ pretty quick, if ’e’s 
ever a-goin’ there. And as for myself, I ’ave a good 
many doubts as they won’t let ’im in even if ’e gets 
to the gates.” 

Here Roberts turned upon another man, who had 
just given a kind of titter at this last statement. 

Wot’re yer larfin’ at ? ” he demanded. ‘‘ I think 
so, anyway; if you don’t agree, I don’t mind yer 
sayin’ so. It’s just ’im as keeps a many of us from 
’ goin’ religious, miss. ’E’s got a good soldiers’-home 
religion, but it don’t go no further. ’E goes in for 
the loaves and fishes. To ’ear ’im pray, you’d think 
as ’ow ’e was the blessedest saint on this earth. 
Talk about lettin’ your light shine ; there ain’t much 
chance for any other lights a-shinin’ w’en ’is light is 

25 


The Bible Punchers, 


near. Ts one would extinguish all the others; it'd 
outshine all the lot. Yes, 'e does let 'is light shine, 
that 'e do." 

By this time Lois and Mr. McDonald felt that 
Roberts was letting off steam, which had evidently 
been kept under pressure for some time, and that 
they were in for a good explosion ; so they waited to 
see the end thereof. 

“ You don't let 'im pray much, miss, down at the 
'Ome. Fve noticed you allays starts us singin' or 
somethin' w’en 'e gets up to begin. But afore you 
come, the chaplain, 'e could never see through 'im, 
not 'e; and lots of us used to go down to the 'Ome 
just on purpose to 'ave the fun of 'earin 'im. Wot's 
up with yer. Bill?" — this as an aside to the man 
whom he had addressed before. 

Bill, thus called upon, replied, Seems to me as 
you've got a special spite against Fisher, and wants 
everybody else to share it. I don’t blame yer, not 
I, but it sounds funny a bit to 'ear yer talkin' like 
it, too " 

‘‘ Yer've just 'it the mark," Roberts replied; ‘‘but 
Miss Darrell don’t need the warnin’. You've read 
'im, miss; we all saw that, after the first meetin' or 
so. 

“ You remember that night, miss, w'en Philips 
'ere and me turned to the right-about, as them 
‘ line ' fellows call it. Well, yer see, 1 got 'ome and 
showed my colors, as you advised, right away. 
26 


The Defaulter. 


Fisher, "e knew better than to talk to me. Well, 
Philips, 'e’cl only just come, as you know, to the 
battery, and 'e didn’t know anything at all about the 
old scoundrel, and so Fisher walks ’ome with ’im, 
givin’ ’im yarn and cant all the way back to bar- 
ricks. Philips, ’e don’t storp in my room, but ’im 
and me is chums. So next day I arst ’im if ’e’d gone 
down on ’is knees to pray, like you said we was to. 
And says ’e to me, a-replyin’ to my question, says ’e, 
‘ No, I didn’t. Fisher told me ’e always says ’is 
prayers in ’is cot, and so I did, too.’ ” 

‘‘ Well, I got ’old of Fisher that time, and I 
pretty near shook ’im, I was that angry. I collared 
’im, you know, in quite a friendly fashion at first, 
but w’en I’d got ’im, I could ’ardly keep my ’ands 
off givin’ ’im a downright good ’un. The impudence 
of ’im a-tryin’ to set ’is opinions up again’ yours, 
miss, beats me. I told ’im as ’ow you’d said we was 
to pray on our knees outside the cot, and down by 
the side of it, w’en the lights was on — so as our 
lights could shine a bit, and p’raps ’elp some timid 
other lights to shine, too, and I arst ’im ’ow ’e dare 
tell Philips to do anythin’ else but that, after you’d 
give the orders. I gave it ’im pretty strong, didn’t 
I, Bill?” 

For answer Bill nodded his head vigorously as he 
said — 

“ I guess you did ; but I shan’t forget the way you 
went on to Philips after you’d done with Fisher. 
27 


The Bible Punchers. 


You’d never believe, miss, as Roberts was Roberts 
then. ’E spoke to Philips ’ere as if ’e’d been ’is 
grandmother almost. Not but wot ’e was quite 
right.” 

Philips was using the curry-comb as if his life 
depended on the amount of grooming he could get 
done in a certain time, and Roberts, who had been 
vigorously giving his horse a brush down all the 
while he was speaking, continued his brushings more 
vigorously than ever. Bill had finished his work, 
and was leaning, arms folded, up against the division 
between the two stalls ; he was ‘‘ grinnin’ ; ” as Rob- 
erts put it — “ ’e can’t do nothin’ else.” 

‘‘ I believe you think that ’orse of yours ’as been 
changed into Fisher,” Bill remarked, ‘‘ you’re layin’ 
it on so to him.” 

And, indeed, Roberts’ animal here lifted up his 
leg and pawed the ground in mild remonstrance. 

“ Woa, my boy ; woa, my ’earty ; quiet, there, 
quiet. Did I brush it too hard, then? I think you’ll 
do now.” 

And Roberts looked the horse well over with a 
critical eye. Then he laid down his brushes and 
cloths, and, patting him on the back once more, re- 
newed his defence of Philips. 

“ Well, you see. Philips, ’e’s a bit timid like, and 
’e thought, of course, Fisher bein’ an old Christian 
like, might be trusted a bit better than me. I says to 
’im, ‘ W’y don’t you do as Miss Darrel says ? ’ But 
28 


The Defaulter. 


it were all no go ; and so, after a bit, ’e finds out as 
’ow Fisher’s a real ’ippercrite for ’isself, and ’e finds 
out, about the same time, as ’e’s pretty nearly the 
same thing, too, and any’ow that the men say ’e’s 
tarred with Fisher’s brush, and they all began at ’im. 
And then that finished matters; for ’e gort too 
shamed liked to come down to the ’Ome. I told ’im, 
I did, as ’ow ’e’d better come and tell you all about 
it, miss. Philips, ’e’ll bear me out there ’isself, but 
it were all no use ; ” and Roberts sighed. 

Philips found his tongue at this point, and began 
to take up the cudgels for himself. 

I was just wantin’ to come down, miss, but I’d 
stayed away so much ; and that time w’en you come 
up to barricks and spoke to me on coal fatigue, I 
made up my mind as I would come that very night 
and start afresh, but at the last minute I didn’t.” 

All this time Mr. McDonald had been standing 
aside, so that the men might speak freely to the lady 
from the Home. Now, however, he came forward 
and ventured to remind her that there were other 
billets to be visited. So she held out her hand once 
more to Philips, and said — 

“ Well, you will come to-night with Roberts, 
won’t you, and really begin all over afresh. See ! the 
sun is peeping out at last ! ” — for just at this mo- 
ment the clouds broke and the stable was flooded 
with sunshine ; even the horses seemed to rejoice in 
the radiance of it. ‘‘ You must let Christ shine into 
29 


The Bible Punchers. 


your heart like that, and you will become a brave, 
strong man. I shall look out for you ; ” and then she 
was gone to visit the other billets with Mr. McDon- 
ald. 

In no other instance were Bible Punchers billeted 
together. Holt and Dane were in two of the worst 
public-houses on the list. And at all the billets the 
same invitation was given : ** Would the men come 
to tea at the Temperance Hotel that evening at six 
o’clock? There would be a meeting afterwards, to 
which all were welcome, but none would be com- 
pelled, to stay.” 

And at all the public-houses that night the var- 
ious hosts were put out,” for the men accepted the 
invitation, as a general rule, gladly. 


30 


CHAPTER V. 

A RECRUIT. 

There was a good deal of excitement going on at 
the Temperance Hotel in the town. As it happened, 
this was rather a slack time, and there were not many 
visitors, so that the reading-room was very much at 
the disposal of the military ; and they made good use 
of it whilst waiting for tea — for these artillerymen 
had in many instances accepted the invitation to 
come to tea with alacrity, and had arrived in very 
good time indeed. 

In an adjoining room several ladies (pressed into 
the service by the minister’s wife) were cutting 
up ; ” and in the large room near several others were 
laying the tables, assisted in both rooms by mem- 
bers of the sterner sex, who had willingly proffered 
their help. These, when not engaged as hewers of 
wood and drawers of water,” were chatting to the 
bluecoats, who now began to swarm all over the 
place. 

The hotel visitors, wondering what was up, came 
out from the coffee-room, and, discovering the rea- 

31 


The Bible Punchers. 

son for the onslaught of the military, declared their 
intention of having a share in the business. So that 
there was no lack of help in the way of making the 
.soldiers feel quite at home. 

Precisely as the town hall clock struck six, the tea- 
room doors were thrown open, and the guests en- 
tered, looking in some cases very shy, but they all 
exclaimed in admiration at the sight of the tea- 
tables. 

The ladies had altogether abandoned the idea of 
an ordinary tea-meeting; damask tablecloths, glass, 
silver, flowers, and really good china — not the or- 
dinary tea-meeting kind; cf)ld meats of every kind, 
cakes, fruit, and jam, with salads, pastry, brown and 
white bread, and butter — that was the class of tea- 
table which the men saw as they entered. 

‘‘ That’s a sight for sore een,” said Holt to Dane, 
whilst Dane, with a suspicious moisture about the 
eye, muttered, “ It reminds me of home and my 
mother. It’s so many years since I used things like 
that, that I shall feel like a fool almost in handling 
them.” 

Philips and Roberts drew long breaths ; they had 
never seen a table looking like that in their lives; 
whilst some of the mess-servants thought, “ That 
table would ’old it’s own, as far as its looks went, 
with any mess-table I’ve seen.” Looks like or- 
ficers’ mess, not a tea-meeting for such as us ; ” and 
so on. 


32 


A Recruit. 


Then the men took their seats, and rose again to 
sing the grand old blessing ; and they sang it, too — 
with tears in their eyes, many of them ; and when the 
“ Amen sounded forth, many civilians felt they 
had already been rewarded for their trouble. 

It was a goodly sight to see them eat. Even the 
roughest of them soon got over his first awkward- 
ness. The ladies and gentlemen present made it 
their business to help them to feel at home. Plates 
were replenished and teapots refilled — ^teapots, not 
urns — the few there were of these latter were either 
silver or electro-plate, and did not require re- 
filling. 

I say,’’ said a gunner to his chum, I do feel 
sorry for them sentries; they’d give something for 
such a sight as this.” 

Oh ! but we’ve sent tea up to them,” said a lady, 
who was busy filling teacups on the other side of 
him. 

‘‘ It’s the sight of the table, mum, they would like. 
I don’t seem to want to eat nothin’, so long as I can 
look at the things,” he replied. “ We don’t see this 
sort of table in our life, you know.” 

By ones and twos and threes the men finished, and 
then, when the last knife and fork were laid down, 
suddenly a voice was heard to say, Three cheers for 
Miss Darrell and her friends.” 

Then the men all rose to their feet, and those 
cheers were given with such deafening noise that 
3 33 


The Bible Punchers. 

“ the friends ” almost wished themselves farther 
away. 

Then the grace was sung, and in a very few 
minutes the room was clear of the soldiers, save 
for those who had volunteered their assistance in 
making it ready for the meeting. Those men worked 
with a will, and enjoyed it, too ; for, as one of them 
said, as he removed a costly epergne of flowers, “ It 
does us good to touch the things.” 

In the room which had been given up to the men’s 
use for reading and lounging in, a big N.C.O., who 
had never come to the meetings at the Home, being 
above that sort of thing in his own estimation, was 
attacking Holt. 

What about this meetin’, I say? ” he questioned ; 
‘‘ they’ve said nothing about wantin’ us to remain.” 

“Not likety,” was the reply of the bombardier; 
“ they don’t ram religion down your throat. You 
had an invitation to the meeting when you were in- 
vited to tea. If you don’t want to stop, no one will 
force you.” 

“ I ’ad the invitation,” said the other, “ but I 
thought they would put a bit of pressure on, to com- 
pel us to stop like.” 

“ You can just stay or go,” Holt said; “ that’s as 
you like yourself.” 

“ It looks a bit shabby to go off,” the N.C.O. re- 
plied ; “ I think I’ll stay ” — and he did. 

Somehow it was this very non-compulsion to stay 

34 


A Recruit. 


which compelled the soldiers to remain. They felt 
it a bit shabby to go ; ” and so, in all the town that 
night, except for the officers, the men on duty, and 
Frazer's sergeant-major, there was not an artillery- 
man to be seen anywhere else but in the large hall of 
the Temperance Hotel, which was quite full up; for 
the townsfolk, having heard of the meeting, crowded 
in and filled up all the places which were not required 
by the bluecoats. Church of England and Noncon- 
formists alike came up to the hall, and their clergy, 
too. These latter, when seen, were invited on to the 
platform, and made quite a goodly show. 

But do what she could, the inaugurator of this 
meeting found on one point her helpers were immo- 
vable. They were quite willing to put themselves 
under her orders, but she must conduct that meeting 
herself, and they would follow her lead. 

It was a good meeting, in every sense of the word, 
its one aim to lead humanity to Christ ; but when it 
was thrown open to the soldiers, then the townsfolk 
opened their eyes. 

There was no calling on any one by name, but in 
a moment the N.C.O. who had felt it “ too shabby to 
go away after tea was over" was standing and 
speaking right out, so that all could hear. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, and comrades," he began, 
‘‘ w'en we started on the route to-day, I 'ad no more 
intention of cornin’ to a religious meetin’ this evenin’ 
than I had of flyin’. My comrades, ladies and gen- 
35 


The Bible Punchers. 


tlemen, can testify to the truth of that statement 
anyhow. They know I never willin’ly attend any- 
thin' of that sort. I’m a rough-and-ready customer, 
I am, havin’ gone through the world till now with- 
out lovin’ or bein’ loved. If I found a thing wrong. 
I’m down on it, and on them, and they know that, 
too.” 

Several of the soldiers smiled and nodded their 
heads at this point, and the speaker added, as if in an 
aside — 

“ You see they corroborate me, ladies and gentle- 
men, and I guess they will all through. 

Well, as I was sayin’, I don’t reckon religion 
has helped me much. I’ve got along very well with- 
out it; and I reckoned I should, too, right on to the 
end. I don’t remember any father or mother. I 
was just dragged up in a slum, and I don’t remem- 
ber bearin’ many kind words as a lad. As soon as I 
got old enough I ’listed, and saw active service soon 
after. I’m a bit grizzled and worn now, but I’ve 
got my medals and my bars; and I’ve just rose by 
sheer force of will to what I am now. I don’t reckon 
as religion has had much to do with me up to now. 
I’ve always kept myself as a good soldier of the 
queen, and I’ve reckoned myself as good, if not 
better, than other folks, and I put all religion down 
as cant. At our last station there was a Soldiers’ 
Home and a lady ” 

The men began to clap at this mention of their 

36 


A Recruit. 


old place of rendezvous and the lady, but the N.C.O., 
without noticing the interruption, continued — 

‘‘ But I was a bit afraid of goin’ there. The lady 
on the platform was staying in the station, and 
holdin’ services at the Home for soldiers. She 
hadn’t always been there, but w^hen she came our 
fellows took to goin’ to the services — they’d used to 
go to the bar and the readin’-room only before; but 
she got hold of them and turned them into Bible 
Punchers. She’d turned so many of the men by her 
talks that I w^as a bit afraid of her makin’ me one, 
willy-nilly like. So I kept clear of it all. But she 
alw^ays give me a kind word whenever she’d see me. 
I felt a bit above wantin’ to go to soldiers’ homes and 
meetin’s, and I’d often told her so. Well, I tell you, 
ladies and gents, I felt downright glad when the 
Route come, for I’d the sort of feelin’ inside me all 
along that I’d have to give in and get to the meetin's 
in the end, just to encourage her a bit, she’d asked 
me so often.” 

There was a shout of laughter at this from the ar- 
tillery lads. 

Go it, Serjint Foss,” they said. 

I don’t mean that in a patronizin’ way, not me. 
Don’t you mistake me, my lads; but she’d look so 
grieved like wdien I said ' No ’ each time she’d asked 
me to come, that I felt I’d not be able to hold out 
much longer; and so I \vas real glad when them 
orders came for us to march, as I didn’t want to go 
37 


The Bible Punchers. 


religious. I reckoned myself quite as good as a 
many of those as professed to be better than other 
chaps. 

“ And so I tell you, ladies and gents, I was a bit 
thunderstruck when I see that lady from the Home 
in the Market Square here. How she got here be- 
fore us I don’t know, but here she was; and she 
didn’t come along with the guns, that I do know.” 

There was another round of applause from the 
men, and then the sergeant continued — 

Well, ladies and gents, when she came round the 
billets this afternoon with the invitation to the tea 
and meetin’ I felt worse than ever, and when she 
asked me, says she, ^ There’ll be no sergeants’ mess 
here, and nowhere but the public-house for you, and 
I know you are above that way of spendin’ the 
evenin’,’ why, as she’d asked me so often before and 
I’d said * No,’ I said ‘ Yes ’ this time — for a change, 
maybe. But I think myself it was because she’d hit 
the nail on the head. I am a bit above public-houses ; 
I’m a Good Templar, I am, but how she’d know that 
I can’t tell.” 

There was a scarcely concealed ripple of laughter 
here from the soldiers, and a murmur of “ Miss 
Darrell knows most things,” which the sergeant 
heard. 

“ Well, I reckon you’re about right there, com- 
rades ; anyhow, she knew that, and so I promised to 
come down. But I meant to get away before the 

38 


A Recruit. 


meetin’ come on. I didn’t want to stop to no meetin’, 
but I did stop. You see, ladies and gents, it was 
just you all puttin’ yourselves to all that trouble, and 
givin’ us the best of everything; no common tea- 
meetin’ stuff, but treatin’ of us as you would your 
own friends, as if we were gentlemen, lettin’ us have 
the best china and things. I tell you that struck me 
all of a heap, it did ; it made me feel as if I must stop 
to the meetin’ ; I couldn’t go away. And then those 
speeches and her speech; I’ve had to listen to 
them ” 

The sergeant’s voice broke a little here, and be- 
came rather husky ; he began to cough, as if to clear 
his throat, and the soldiers filled up the gap by clap- 
ping hands and stamping feet uproariously ; only for 
a moment or so, though — then, with a perfectly clear, 
ringing voice, the old fellow continued — 

“ Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can’t say as how 
I’m going to be a Bible Puncher; but I’m going to 
have a good try at it, and I guess I’m a different man 
from to-night. From the bottom of my heart I 
thank you.” 

And, amid a storm of applause, the old, grizzled 
fellow sat down. 

When that had subsided, Dane arose. In appear- 
ance he was, perhaps, the greatest contrast which 
could possibly be found to the last speaker. A tall, 
dark young fellow, well set up; in every way a 
smart-looking artilleryman, but he had not been in 
39 


The Bible Punchers. 


the queen's service long enough to have soldier " 
stamped all over him, as had the old sergeant. In 
fact, Dane, in ordinary civilian clothes, might have 
been taken for an Oxford undergraduate, which, in- 
deed, he had been in reality a few years before. 

The lady of the Home knew his life-story, and 
why he stood there in Her Majesty’s uniform. 

Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “ I am to-day 
one of the Bible Punchers. A few months ago I 
was an utterly godless, reckless dare-devil; before 
that I was an outcast from my old home through my 
own sin and folly; each succeeding year has left me 
a great deal worse than it found me, and I rather 
gloried in my shame. Then suddenly the change 
came. At our last station there was a Soldiers’ 
Home. Sergeant Foss told you that. I had passed 
its doors over and over again, but I much preferred 
the mad carousals which could be had in various 
public-houses and places of amusement, to the read- 
ing-room and library or games-room there. The re- 
freshment-bar had no charm at all for me. Tea and 
coffee, cocoa and chocolate, lemonade and ginger 
beer, were not at all in my line. " So I spent my spare 
evenings elsewhere — where I could have a down- 
right good time from my point of view. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, a few months ago 
a lady came to that Home to hold meetings in it for 
soldiers. Out of sheer idle curiosity I wandered into 
the Home one night and heard her speak; and I 
40 


A Recruit. 


wished at the end of that meeting that I had wan- 
dered one hundred miles in another direction. For 
one long, wretched week I gave that Home and the 
lad}^ — ^you see her, ladies and gentlemen, on the plat- 
form, and you have heard her speak to-night — a very 
wide berth indeed. Then I took my courage in both 
hands, and, going down to the Home, asked to see 
‘ our lady ’ in the little prayer-room. My comrades, 
many of them, know that little room well, and they 
know, too, the kind of talk which she gives there. If 
any of us have been disgracing the colors of the King 
of kings, and want to hide the fact, we don’t face 
* our lady ’ in that little room, do we, comrades ? ’ 

There was a chorus of “ No, no,” from the ar- 
tillerymen in answer to this question, and a broad 
smile on many of their faces. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, you can understand how 
I felt when, having told her what an utter waste I 
had made of my life, and what a sinner I had been, 
' our lady ’ told me to write to my mother and ask 
for forgiveness. Up to that time I had considered 
myself as the one who was offended, not the of- 
fender; but Miss Darrell soon showed me the other 
side of the picture, and before she had talked to me 
for five minutes I saw myself as I stood in God’s 
sight, and that sight frightened me. Frightened me ! 
ay, it more than frightened me. I was struck with 
something more than fright. And it was then, when 
I was such a wicked wretch in my own sight, that I 

41 


The Bible Punchers. 

•, W • 

found out what that verse means, ^ The Soir of man 
came to seek and to save that which was lost.* *’ 
Dane’s voice rang out these words clearly, and his 
eyes looked straight at his audience. They one and 
all were looking directly at him. He was sitting in 
the front row, and, when he rose to speak, had turned 
his back to the platform, to face the audience; they 
were hanging on his words almost, for he might be 
described as a magnetic speaker ; over and over again 
his chums, both at Oxford and in the barrack-room, 
had told him he ought to have gone in for spout- 
ing.” as they expressed it. 

He paused now for a moment or so, and stood si- 
lently looking at the crowded benches. There was 
no applause, but a silence which could almost be felt, 
and into some of his hearers’ hearts the words, ** The 
Son of man came to seek and to save that which was 
lost,” stole and re-echoed themselves again and again 
for long afterwards. 

One of the civilians interrupted the stillness with 
a cough, and then Dane continued — 

‘‘ That night I went back from the Home a new 
man in Christ Jesus. I cannot tell you what a dif- 
ference it made to me. I looked forward to the 
Home meetings every hour of the day, and as I 
could not go every night, I took good care to take a 
note-book, and in it I took down the addresses, to 
provide me with spiritual food during my absence. 
Thank God for the Home.” 

42 


A Recruit. 


The men burst into a storm of stamping and clap- 
ping at this point, in which Dane’s voice was com- 
pletely drowned, but when it subsided he went on 
again. 

Then the Route came, ladies and gentlemen, to 
Misterford, and it seemed to crush me somehow. 
All of us Bible Punchers felt the same. Why, even 
with the Home standing where it did, just at the 
corner of two streets, there were three or four public- 
houses to be passed, and one large one opposite. 
Why, after that night in the little prayer-room, I 
would go past those places almost at the double, as 
the men in the line say, and so would a good many 
more of us. And now we have to look forward to 
spending our time, when we are not with the guns, 
in these houses of temptation for a fortnight. And 
with the prospect of Misterford at the end, where 
there isn’t a Home or any other decent place into 
which soldiers are welcomed. It seemed to all of 
us as if matters could not be worse. So we went and 
took our troubles to ‘ our lady ’ at the Home. She 
promised to help us, and we knew she would. 

‘‘ Ladies and gentlemen, when we saw her here in 
the Market Square, we felt all was well, for this one 
day, at any rate. But we none of us knew there were 
so many ready to assist us to be true to ourselves and 
the King of kings. You have removed one big 
temptation out of our road, and you have put new 
courage into our hearts. We cannot thank you as 
43 


The Bible Punches. 


we wish, but we can pray that He whom we serve 
will reward you as you deserve, and we shall. As 
long as I live I can never undo the past, but you have 
to-night helped me to redeem the future.'’ 

Holt rose almost immediately when Dane sat 
down; and after him several others in quick succes- 
sion ; and then the meeting proper closed ; but, as no 
one seemed inclined to go, a glorious after-meeting 
was held, which proved the spiritual birthplace of 
many civilians, as well as soldiers. After which, 
back to their billets went the men, in many instances 
accompanied to the very doors of the public-houses 
by strong, stalwart civilians, who were Christ’s sol- 
diers, glad to do work which, until roused to see its 
need to-day, they had never realized lay in their road 
before. 

Then came the start next morning from the 
square, where were assembled a goodly crowd of 
the folk who had been at the meeting the night be- 
fore, just to say good-by to the soldiers, and to 
give them a hearty shake of the hand as a send-off. 
One week after that the inspector of the police gave 
his opinion of the whole innovation to Mr. Mc- 
Donald. 

I would never have believed it,” he said. The 
soldiers have come and gone, and influenced the 
town for good. But you have made enemies of the 
publicans. Next time that lady comes here, I ex- 
pect she will have a great deal of difficulty in enter- 
44 


A Recruit. 


Ing the bar parlors again. Several of the biggest 
scamps in the town have turned over a new leaf as 
the result of the meeting, and have not been inside 
the public-houses since. It would pay the town to 
get up similar meetings every time the soldiers halt 
here. I could easily guarantee that, judging by the 
after-effects of this first one. I verily wish some- 
thing of the kind could be done.’' 


45 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ HE WENT FOR A SOLDIER.” 

It was a family break fast-table, of the typical 
English sort, during the Long Vacation. The only 
son of the house was spending that part of it at 
home, and lounging in his seat, whilst the father read 
his letters. 

Paterfamilias is mad,” he was saying to his 
sisters ; he doesn’t like my being sent down at all.” 

I should rather think not,” said the elder girl. 
‘‘You were a fool, Frank; the allowance father 
makes you ought to have been quite sufficient, with- 
out running into debt like that.” 

The second girl here acquiesced with her sister, 
and Frank told them both to “ Shut up.” 

Suddenly the head of the house looked up from 
his perusal of the morning’s post, and, handing a 
paper across to his son, demanded, angrily — 

“ Is that your writing or mine, sir, in your 
opinion ? ” 

Frank flushed crimson, and the father went on — 

“ Because I find I am called upon to pay the 
money, and that signature I never wrote.” 

46 


“ He went for a Soldier/' 


J'rank was silent. 

“Will you speak, sir?’' he thundered, “and tell 
me if you forged my signature or not ? ” 

“ I was in great difficulties, and meant to pay it 
back,” Frank muttered. “ I had no alternative; I’d 
no idea you would be called upon to meet the bill, and 
it was backed to help a friend in need. I signed my 
own name, and never meant to forge your signa- 
ture.” 

“No alternative!” said the father. “You walk 
out of my house this very day, sir, and never 
darken my doors again. Never meant to forge my 
signature! Did you intend to meet this bill out of 
your allowance, pray? The man who took that bill 
imagined he was accepting one backed by me, and I 
must pay it.” 

“ I didn’t mean it in that way,” Frank stammered; 
“ to me it was simply a mere form.” 

“ I didn’t know my son was a dishonest simple- 
ton,” the father remarked, with a sneer. “ You 
backed this bill, knowing you had not the amount 
wherewith to meet it — and never would have until 
my death — and that is quite enough for me. I’m 
fnot a fool — if you are — and I believe the evidence 
bf my own senses. That evidence shows me plainly 
enough that this ” — pointing to the signature on the 
paper, which Frank had previously given back to 
him — “ is a barefaced forgery.” 

Frank looked up and faced his father. “ I tell 

47 


The Bible Punchers. 


you I never meant it like that,” he said. Then, turn- 
ing to the girls, Why don’t you stand up for me, 
you two? You know I could never do a thing like 
that. They told me it was only a matter of form, 
and the fellow was in such awful trouble. I never 
dreamt that it would be taken in that way — and you 
know my signature is almost exactly like the pater’s, 
and my name is the same as his.” 

Hide behind your sisters, would you, you young 
hound?” roared the master of the house, before 
those sisters could speak one word. They would 
stand up for their brother through thick and thin, 
and did afterwards, as did their mother, who was 
quite an invalid and confined to one room, and in 
that to her sofa, where she had lain for six years. 
But the mother pleaded in vain for her son to be for- 
given. 

The scoundrel is not even repentant,” the father 
replied ; “ when he wants forgiveness he can ask for 
it himself.” 

And so later on, that same day, Frank Dane took 
his father at his word, and not only left the old home 
as a dishonored man himself, but he left trouble and 
disgrace behind him. 

The bill was for a very large amount, and the 
Danes had great difficulty in meeting it. But the 
old family honor was at stake. The name had never 
yet been disgraced; and, although land had gone 
down in value, and they were nearly dependent upon 

48 


** He went for a Soldier.” 


the rents from land, the bill was met and paid, and 
the matter hushed up. 

But the disgrace of it all broke the father, and 
he never expressed the least regret at having turned 
adrift his only son ; not even when he knew he was a 
dying man. And so Frank Dane the elder passed 
away into the unseen world — as he had lived for 
the last year of his life — in the spirit of unforgive- 
ness. 

And Frank Dane the younger, when he knew of 
his father’s death, grew more bitter and reckless 
still. Not knowing what to do or whither to go 
when turned out of the old home, he had hailed the 
recruiting sergeant with delight, and woke up the 
next morning after enlistment in the most dare- 
devil mood he had ever experienced. 

Write to them,” said his conscience; ‘Met your 
mother know where you are — she will be worrying 
and anxious.” 

“ Not I,” Frank said to himself; and he kept up - 
to his resolution until he came into touch with the 
lady at the Soldiers’ Home. Then he saw himself 
as he stood in God’s sight, and knew himself to be a 
sinner — saw himself, too, from his father’s point of 
view; and knew that he himself might have judged 
his own son from that standpoint, upon the evidence 
which was forthcoming. And the hard, bitter feel- 
ing passed away, and in its stead came the relentless 


4 


49 


The Bible Punchers. 


remorse, for having brought the gray hairs of his 
father with sorrow to the grave. 

‘‘ If I had not acted like a fool,” he said to Lois 
Darrell, “ from the very commencement of the Ox- 
ford days, I should never have been mixed up with 
that set. I went from bad to worse, and it just 
served me right that in the end I was accused of 
forging my father’s name. I never did that, you 
know; but very few of my ’Varsity days were good 
for much.” 

And so he wrote home to his mother, and brought 
the answer for Lois to read; and she read in that 
same that Frank Dane, “ the young dare-devil,” as 
many of the battery had called him at first, would 
have to spend the whole of his life in the knowledge 
that he was unforgiven, and that that fact he owed 
to his own folly. 

If you had only written, my boy, and made 
things plain to me even, your father would have 
felt differently. But after you left, nothing but 
unpaid bills and reports of gambling debts were 
constantly coming in. Two of your tutors called 
and saw him privately. They bad nothing to say, 
except the one fact that you were really clever, but 
had simply frittered away your time. That you 
were really wicked they would not believe; but they 
said you were careless, idle, indifferent, and chose 
your friends amongst the loungers. Then he told 
them of that bill; they stood up for you, were sure 

50 


“ He went for a Soldier.'' 

you had not done it. But your father said you had 
never explained matters, and that, had you been 
guiltless, you could have proved it; that you had 
never sent one word since he sent you away, never 
written to any of us, and that showed you were 
guilty. * I am afraid my son is a young scoundrel,' 
Those were his words, and he died in that belief." 

The whole tone of the letter was the same — the 
mother had evidently steeled her heart into the 
belief that her boy was guilty, and the letter plainly 
showed this. Also, it told how both sisters were in 
daily situations, and that, with their combined sal- 
aries, they were keeping their mother ; and it showed 
plainly, too, at whose door all the blame for this lay ; 
and it wound up by hinting at the further disgrace 
it would bring to them, were it to be known that he 
(Frank Dane) was a common soldier in the ranks, 
and hoping that he had changed his name. 

With a groan, he put the letter once more into its 
envelope, when Lois Darrell gave it to him, and as he 
did so he said — 

When I left the old home I knew it was for 
good. Miss Darrell ; but until now I did not know my 
mother and sisters believed me guilty. I almost 
wish I had never written to them at all." 

You had much better wish you had written to 
them all, long before," Lois replied ; “ but now your 
one aim must be to rise in your profession, and be- 
come a credit to the name. Make them proud of the 

51 


The Bible Punchers. 


name through the service. Write to them regularly; 
send them ail the help you can. And don't go and 
see them. Remember, you have to live things down ; 
and that if God be for you, who can be against 
you ? " 

But I can never prove myself innocent in their 
eyes," Frank said, with a quiver in his voice. “ It 
is too horrible to think that the mother won’t believe 
me." 

‘‘ Some day she may," Lois said; some day, if 
God fights for you, you may have the proofs to show 
them you are innocent." 

And then Frank Dane went back and took up what 
he meant to be his life’s work now— rliving for God 
in deadly earnest — amongst those who surrounded 
him. 

Dare-devil Dane ’’ was the first of the Bible 
Punchers ; but he was not the only one for long, and 
when the blow came, and the battery had its march- 
ing orders, there were a goodly number who, having 
followed Dane’s leadership, were with him, lament- 
ing the change of quarters, and almost crying out in 
the bitterness of their heart that at the new station 
there was no Soldiers’ Home. 

Frank Dane had not realized as yet that we are 
kept by the power of God — that we are in His keep- 
ing, not He in ours. 

Neither had he completely taken his feet off the 
ladder which had been leading to such heights of 

52 


“ He went for a Soldier.” 


human folly. As the result of his reckless, frivol- 
ous, careless life, he had to reap what he had sown. 
He had flirted desperately, both in his Oxford and 
his barrack life, and perhaps did not realize that he 
was engaged to marry three or four individuals, 
whose stations in life were very varied indeed. He 
was almost too young a Christian to know the right 
thing to do under such circumstances, and he had not 
spoken to the lady at the Home about the matter ; but 
the light was beginning to dawn, and, before the day 
broke, would give him a great deal of insight into 
dark corners. 


53 


CHAPTER VIL 


THE HOME OF TOMMY ATKINS. 

The first halt had only tended to strengthen 
the Bible Punchers. What would the others do? 
Would they prove a hindrance ? The men wondered, 
but they knew that our lady ’’ would do her ut- 
most for this not to be so, and their trust was not 
misplaced. 

For the next halt Lois had arranged for the bat- 
tery to be met by a friend immediately it came into 
the town, and for an evening meeting; but for the 
halt following, which was at a large garrison town, 
in which she knew no one, what was to be done? 
After some little thought she went on by train to 
spy the land, feeling confident that in some way the 
King of kings would provide for His own recruits 
and show her what to do. But she walked up one 
street and down another for some little time rather 
hopelessly, until she suddenly came face to face with 
a Wesleyan chapel. 

In that lay the solution of the question as to what 
was to be done on the night of the third halt. Why 
not have a meeting there? To the ministers she had 
54 


The Home of Tommy Atkins. 

previously written, but they were away at the dis- 
trict synod, and had replied saying so, and also stat- 
ing that they knew no one who could help. For, al- 
though there were hundreds of soldiers garrisoned 
there, there was no Soldiers’ Home, and seemingly 
no one who took an interest in them at all. 

Then suddenly there came the thought to find 
out who were the trustees, and ask them to allow 
the use of a schoolroom, or even the chapel itself, 
for the next night. But how to discover their 
names and dwellings ? Then her eye caught sight 
of the chapel-keeper’s name on the notice-board, and 
she resolved to call upon him as a first step. 

A group of lads were lounging by the chapel 
railings, errand-boys mostly, and, as boys will do 
when they get together, they had placed their bas- 
kets on the ground, or were resting them on the 
stone parapet which supported the railings, whilst 
they discussed various matters which were far and 
away more important in their eyes than the interests 
of the masters whom they served, and the customers 
who were waiting for the goods the baskets con- 
tained. 

One of these, a cheeky little lad of fourteen, with 
black curly hair, and a cap stuck down anyhow on 
the top of his head, and whose basket hung perfectly 
empty on his arm, suddenly addressed her with — 
’Ave yer lost anything, lady? ” 

She was scarcely surprised at the interruption, 

55 


The Bible Punchers. 


for she had been standing still, gazing at the notice- 
board quite long enough to attract attention. 

No, I have not lost anything, but I want to find 
my way to the chapel-keeper’s house,” she replied, 
smiling. “ And I am quite a stranger here, and do 
not know into which street I should turn first.” 

Well, that’s quite easily managed,” said the lad, 
seein’ as ’ow Vs my father. I’ve took my things 
to their places, and was just goin’ ’ome myself; so 
you can come along with me, if yer likes, and I’ll 
take yer straight there.” 

And so off the two went together, the boy calling 
out to his chums — 

You’d better be sharp about delivering thern 
goods, or you’ll ’ave the gov’nors after turnin’ all 
of yer off the job. You should try duty first, and 
pleasure after.” And he grinned. 

G’arn with yer,” they shouted. “ Who made 
us stop to talk first ? ” 

But I’d done my work,” he replied. Never 
mind them, miss. I’ve got an hour to spare, and 
they’ll only ’ave about a quarter of that for their 
tea. They were just idling away there at the chapel 
gates when I joined ’em. They’d been plaguing a 
cat, and I just went for them ; that’s ’ow it was I was 
with them at all.” 

And the lad spoke the truth. 

It was a nice clean little house, although in a back 
street, to which the boy led. And the chapel-keeper 

56 


The Home of Tommy Atkins. 

and his wife were at home. They gave the new- 
comer a very warm welcome as soon as they knew 
her object in coming. 

Well, Tm sure,” said the v/ife. Now, if our 
Bill, 'ad been 'ome, wouldn’t ’e ’ave enjoyed cornin’ 
to the meetin’. You see, miss, ’e’s a soldier, is our 
Bill, and ’e’s in India. ’E wasn’t always religious; 
in fact, ’e ran away from ’ome to enlist. ’E’s in 
India now; ’e’s been there some years. But about 
a year ago a draft went out to ’is regiment, and in 
it was one of ’is old friends. So they got together 
again. And Sam began telling ’im about the Bible- 
class for soldiers as ’e’d used to go to in England; 
the teacher — a lady she was, miss — used to write to 
’im; and ’e showed Bill the letters, and Bill ’e was 
quite took by them, and after a bit ’e asked Sam if the 
lady would write to ’im too. So Sam ’e wrote and 
told ’er about it, and she wrote to Bill too, and Bill 
’e’s a different man since. ’E’s turned to the right- 
about, ’e says. 

The lady writes to 'im still, and at Christmas 
she sent all ’er Bible-class men — there were a lot 
of them in the regiment — a card with the motto 
she’d chose for them for the New Year on it, all 
painted by ’er own self, and she sent one to Bill, 
too. The mottoes was the same on all the cards, but 
the pictures on all was quite different. And Bill, ’e 
sent it ’ome for us to look at, and get it framed a 
few weeks ago. ’E couldn’t spare it before, ’e said, 
57 


The Bible Punchers. 


but ’e was afraid of its getting spoiled if ’e kept it 
any longer without a frame, and 'e wanted it done 
at ’ome. It’s ’angin’ up there, miss. We’re goin’ 
to send it back to ’im next mail. Father, will you 
take it down and show it? ” 

And the old chapel-keeper carefully lifted down 
from its nail over the mantelpiece, and gave into his 
visitor’s hands, a card which she herself had painted 
months before. 

‘‘ I’ve seen this before,” she said, with a smile, as 
she took the little framed picture — for it was a 
small picture in reality, with the motto for the year 
illuminated underneath it. 

Wot, miss ? ” exclaimed the man. ‘‘ Do you ’ear 
that, old woman ? ” 

Why, yes, John, I ’ears,” said the wife. “ I 
mistrusted me that there couldn’t be many ladies 
in England like the one as writes to our Bill. There’s 
a few, of course. But something seemed to tell me 
as this one was our Bill’s lady.” 

“ Is not your son Corporal William Cuderby, and 
his friend Sergeant Samuel Pittson ? ” 

That’s them, miss,” the chapel-keeper inter- 
rupted, whilst the wife said — 

“ And you are really our Bill’s lady, miss — really 
Miss Darrell ? ” 

For answer our Bill’s lady ” took out her card- 
case, and gave “ our Bill’s ” mother her card, which 
the old chapel-keeper’s wife took with great delight. 


The Home of Tommy Atkins. 

Ay, that’s the name,” she said, as she carefully 
read the printed matter on the bit of pasteboard. 

And now, miss, would you sit just there, so as I 
can ’ave a good look at yer, and be able to tell our 
Bill just wot you are like, really? ” 

I say, Betty, don’t you go and forget aught 
else in thinking about that son of ours, old 
woman,” the chapel-keeper remonstrated; but with 
a laugh the seat to which Betty had pointed was 
taken, and the odd request granted by Lois Dar- 
rell. 

Then, having had a real good look, and made her 
observations, Betty sighed with satisfaction, and 
said — 

‘‘ Now, you’ll just ’ave a cup of tea, miss. I know 
it’s a bit early; that clock up there is just about 
right,” looking up at a grandfather clock which 
stood ticking away in one corner of the room. “ But 
Joe ’ere is my baby, and ’e likes to get ’is work done 
pretty quick, so as to ’ave a good time talkin’ to us, 
and ’e’s generally home to tea a goodish bit before 
’e’d ought to want anything in the eatin’ and 
drinkin’ line; but I generally manage to ’ave the 
kettle boilin’ just fresh about this time.” 

And the chapel-keeper’s wife rose from the old- 
fashioned cushioned chair in which she had been sit- 
ting, and went to the old oak chest which stood up 
against the wall by the side of the fireplace, and from 
it took a clean white table-cloth, evidently kept, by 
59 


The Bible Punchers. 


the careful way it was surrounded with tissue paper, 
for best occasions. 

Our Bill sent this ’ome from India, miss ; it’s 
some of them black folk’s work. I must say as, 
bein’ black as they are, it often comes over me as 
to ’ow they manages not to get these kind of cloths 
a bit grimy. Now, Joe, wot are you grinnin’ for? 
Just go into the scullery, and see if that kettle’s 
just on the boil. And, John, lift out them tea- 
things, will you?” 

Joe, the curly-haired boy, who had been standing 
speechless ever since he had acted as conductor, and 
had introduced Lois Darrell into his house, now 
suddenly vanished to the small kitchen behind, and 
announced his presence there by a regular war- 
whoop. He came back quickly with the kettle in his 
hand, and addressed his mother with the words — 

I say, mother, if this lady is our Bill’s Miss Dar- 
rell, wouldn’t ’e just give a good slice of ’is pay to 
stand in my shoes ! ” 

You take that kettle back again, Joe,” was his 
mother’s command, and keep it just on the boil, 
or your father’ll watch it, if you wants to be off.” 

Joe vanished again into the back regions, and 
the mother added — 

‘‘He’s just achin’, ’e is — ain’t ’e, John? — to go 
and tell his friends all about it. Joe’s a rum ’un, 
’e is.” 

John had meanwhile reached down a beautiful 

6o 


The Home of Tommy Atkins. 

Indian tea-service for two, which was kept in a 
glass cupboard in one corner of the room ; and Betty, 
whilst cutting bread and butter, explained that ** Our 
Bill ’’ had ** sent them ^ome, too/’ 

Joe will ’ave enough to talk about now for a 
bit,” said that youth’s father. '' ’E thinks a lot of 
Bill, does Joe. ’E’s always gettin’ me to get Bill’s 
letters out and readin’ them letters over and over 
again. I wonder, now, if you would like to see the 
last.” 

‘‘ You get them down, John, after you’ve fetched 
in the kettle, and then Miss Darrell can read w’ilst 
she ’as ’er tea,” Mrs. Cuderby said, and her hus- 
band obediently did as she commanded — brought 
the tea-kettle and filled the teapot, into which Betty 
had not yet put the tea. 

“ Oh ! w’at are you about ? ” she exclaimed. 
** W’y, your bein’ who you are, miss, ’as just turned 
our ’eads. Never mind ” — this to her husband — 
it’ll just warm the pot nicely. Throw the water 
into the sink, father ; it won’t take a second.” 

The chapel-keeper went off, laughing, but re- 
turned almost immediately, and Betty, from a real 
Indian tea-caddy, measured out the tea most de- 
liberately, when John refilled the teapot and replaced 
the kettle on the kitchen hob. 

Then he turned to the old desk, which occupied 
a conspicuous place on the round table in front of 
the window, in company with a large picture Bible. 

6i 


The Bible Punchers. 


Both, lying on the top of an antimacassar of most 
elaborate workmanship, with its white-fringed ends 
hanging down around the table, were evidently great 
treasures. 

Betty took a bunch of keys from her pocket and 
gave them to John, who carefully unlocked the desk 
and took out an envelope, from which he drew a 
letter written on foreign paper, and gave it to Lois 
to read; and she read it, thoroughly enjoying her 
cup of tea and bread and butter as she did so, while 
Betty and John looked on, evidently appreciating the 
sight of seeing “ Our Bilks ” teacups and saucers 
“ in active service,^^ for, as they said — 

We don’t use them for common, miss.” 

Lois read the letter through, and then returned it 
to the old chapel-keeper. 

I believe the old woman wants to see it again.” 
he said, as he noticed Betty’s eyes beaming with de- 
light. “ She always reads our Bill’s letters until 
she knows ’em off by heart; but if ever I want a 
quiet read of one to myself she always wants to 
share that enjoyment. ’Ere you are, old woman.” 

Betty took the letter, and put on her spectacles, 
after which for a time she sat absolutely absorbed 
in it, leaving her visitor to be entertained by her 
husband. 

“ That’s a good letter,” Lois observed ; I am so 
glad to read it.” 

“Well, miss, you’ve learnt the secret of ’ow to deal 
62 


The Home of Tommy Atkins. 

with soldiers. It’s just ’avin’ them cards made dif- 
ferent for each man, and done a purpose for them, 
that makes them vally them so. You see, soldiers 
they ’as all the same clothes and rations ; they’re all 
treated alike, just like so many machines. There 
aren’t no separateness about them at all. It’s takin’ 
them man by man, and showing them that each one 
is a separate bein’ all to ’imself, which does them 
good. I was a soldier myself, and I know some- 
thing about them, I do.” And the old chapel-keep- 
er’s form seemed to suddenly stiffen and grow up- 
right again as he finished speaking. 

Betty roused herself at last. 

“ ’Ere, wrap it up and put it away, John,” she 
said. I’m quite forgettin’ myself. I must ask 
pardon, miss; but John ’e does keep them letters as 
careful as if they was gold, and I don’t often get a 
chance to ’ave many good reads at them after they 
gets into the desk.” 

'' Why, you keep the key of it,” John laughed. 

“ Ay, and if I didn’t you’d always be for readin’ 
them, and forgettin’ the chapel,” his wife retorted. 

It was all very enjoyable, but Lois felt she really 
must be up and doing. Finally, having assured her 
hostess she could not really take any more, Lois 
declared she must say good-by; so John put on his 
hat, and started to go with her, '' to show her the 
way to them as could give leave for the meetin’ to 
be ’ad in the chapel itself next day.” 

63 


The Bible Punchers. 


‘‘ Mr. Petersen, Vs a bit queer like,'’ said John ; 
‘‘ but ’im and Mr. Sampson and Mr. Quelp, if they 
takes the thing up, they’ll make it go. Mr. Samp- 
son’s schoolboys ’ave got a drum and fife band. If 
you could get them to come down and play, now — ” 
And then the old chapel-keeper hesitated. 

‘‘ rn try,” said Lois, as she stood at Mr. Samp- 
son’s door, and said good-by to her guide. 

Fortunately, Mr and Mrs. Sampson were both at 
home, and as soon as they knew what their visitor 
wanted they received her with open arms. To her 
request for the band they said — 

** Certainly the boys may come with their drums 
and fifes. They will be only too glad to have some- 
thing to do with real soldiers, and they can have a 
good practice this afternoon. They have a sort of 
volunteer company amongst themselves, and shall 
come down in uniform.” 

So that little matter was settled. 

'' Now, as to the chapel,” Mr. Sampson went on, 
we must go up and see Petersen and Quelp, and I 
don’t fancy there will be the least difficulty. Put on 
your things, Ada ” — this to his wife — ‘‘ and take 
Miss Darrell up to see Quelp, and I’ll go to Peter- 
sen. We ought to advertise the meeting pretty 
largely, and get the bills out, and there is not a great 
deal of time.” 

Lois saw she had come to the right quarter. The 
Sampsons were enthusiasts, people who never looked 
64 


The Home of Tommy Atkins. 

at the difficulties lying in the way, but at the deed 
which had to be done ; and they went straight ahead. 

Of course, we need the “ look before you leap ” 
kind of people in the world ; but there would be very 
few deeds worthy of the Victoria Cross if the leap 
were looked at many times before it was taken. And 
we are inclined to think that there would be very 
little done in the army of the King of kings if there 
were not very many who, seeing the need of a thing 
to be accomplished, did not accomplish it without 
counting the cost. Many a one has sacrificed him- 
self, but he has done a service to humanity and for 
God which can never die. 


5 


65 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ATTACK. 

Mr. Quelp was a singularly crusty old bachelor, 
who might make or mar any schemes presented to 
him ; for, unfortunately, he was a man of power, and 
he was cursed with a tight fist and a very large 
fortune, and he did not take to Lois. 

A young thing like you ought to be at home 
cooking and dusting,” he told her. 

I don’t know who your parents are or where you 
come from, but I do know this: if you were my 
daughter and wanted to run about after soldiers, I 
should shut you up in one room, and knock that 
wanting out of you. As for your having held meet- 
ings for soldiers at Deanshore, as Mrs. Sampson tells 
me you have, I beg to say you may have helped there, 
as I do not wish to doubt your word or hers; but 
I myself heard an account of that mission given by a 
gentleman of indisputable standing, and he never 
mentioned you ; ” and the old fellow leaned back in 
his chair, pushed his spectacles up over his nose, and 
looked at Lois in the most aggravatingly impudent 
manner for a moment or so, whilst she and Mrs. 

66 


Attack. 

Sampson stood speechless — they had not been of- 
fered a chair. 

Evidently they had called at an unfortunate time, 
when his dyspepsia had full sway over him. May 
it not be that a great deal of the crustiness of lonely 
humanity is due to a very badly digested meal? 
Anyhow, Quelp sat there, glaring at his visitors, and 
thundering forth his opinions in a decidedly disa- 
greeable, not to say impolite, fashion. 

Lend the chapel for a set of soldiers ! ” he 
roared, as soon as he had ceased to enjoy the effect 
of his last few words. ‘‘ Do you take me for a 
lunatic, Mrs. Sampson ? I should like to know what 
the cushioned seats would be like next Sunday. The 
men would simply ruin the place. Ours is a chapel, 
madam, not one of the new-fangled mission-halls, 
and I shall most certainly not give my consent to 
any such meeting. We have to put up with them on 
Sundays in the gallery. That is quite enough, I 
think; but they can't do much harm up there. My 
dear madam " — this to Mrs. Sampson, with a smile 
— “ the seat-holders would be coming with all sorts 
of complaints. I'm one of the trustees, and shall 
consent to no congregations of soldiers in the body 
of the chapel. And " — this to Lois, with a sneer — 
“ you would not care to talk to men in the gallery, 
with empty pews right in front of you. No, no. 
Miss Darrell, I must guard the interests of the seat- 
holders. They would most certainly object." 

67 


The Bible Punchers. 


What delightful sort of Christians they must 
be ! ’ Lois said, for she was roused to speak at last ; 
“ of the out-and-out kind in the wrong direction. I 
should say they all need converting. Do you get 
many soldiers in the gallery, Mr. Quelp, at other 
times than at morning service ? 

“ Not one,” Quelp replied, “ and very few in the 
morning.” 

‘‘ Have you ever thought why? ” she asked. 

“ I don’t trouble my head to think about them at 
all,” was the reply. 

“ But Miss Darrell does,” Mrs. Sampson broke in ; 
“ and it’s a very good thing for the soldiers and the 
world at large that there are a few ladies brave 
enough to face what she has. I have always won- 
dered why no soldiers come to our evening services. 
I have never felt it my duty before to work for them. 
But I assure you, Mr. Quelp, from this time forward 
I shall consider it absolutely my imperative duty to 
ask them to come, and to show them that they are 
not shut off from the body of the chapel, too. Our 
pew for the future will always be open to the sol- 
diers. I am not sure but that I shall go out of my 
way to get the soldiers to fill it. It is a very con- 
spicuous pew, as you know, and my example might 
be followed by others.” 

‘‘ That is as your husband pleases, madam,” was 
his reply — laying great stress on “ your hus- 
band.” 


68 


Attack. 


** Oh/^ Mrs. Sampson said, ** my husband’s will is 
mine. We are absolutely one, you know. And if 
we were not, he believes, Mr. Quelp, that I, as a 
woman, have a right to my own opinion, and to act 
up to it; which I intend to do. And as for this 
meeting to-morrow, we can get the consent of other 
trustees for the use of the chapel. It is a little more 
trouble, but we shall not mind that.” 

‘‘ You will never get my consent, madam ; that is 
very certain,” Quelp said, with asperity. 

It is quite equally certain, and very fortunate for 
us, that we can work without it. As to that mission 
to which I referred when I introduced Miss Darrell, 
and to which you referred also, I know the gentle- 
man who spoke to you about it, and I consider him 
thoroughly mean, not to give honor where honor is 
due. Maybe, though, as he was begging for funds 
from your purse, and knowing your prejudice 
against women workers, he showed the serpent’s 
wisdom, and did not mention this lady’s name, think- 
ing to lose your gift if he did so. I cannot help ad- 
miring him in that respect, if this were the case. As it 
happens. Miss Darrell conducted that mission almost 
without any help at all. I know this for a fact, as 
my husband heard a long account of those meetings 
from a friend who lives in the town, and went to sev- 
eral of the services himself. In fact, his meager 
assistance was the only outside aid Miss Darrell had 
at all. I consider you have grossly insulted her, and 
69 


The Bible Punchers. 


that she has the right to regard you with the utmost 
contempt, as I do. Good morning.’’ 

And Mrs. Sampson drew herself up, and without 
offering her hand to the old misanthrope, who still 
sat in his chair, she with Lois left the room, and the 
house. 

Horrible creature ! Money-grubbing old 
wretch ! Men like that have no business to be trus- 
tees at all,” were the words with which Mrs. Samp- 
son summed up the account of the interview when 
she told her husband the result of the visit to Mr. 
Quelp. 

The worst of it all is, the fact that we can’t turn 
him out from the trusteeship,” he replied. How- 
ever, I’ve seen Petersen and Marshall, and one or 
two others. They are delighted with the idea, and 
everything will be all right. Our minister is away, 
Miss Darrell, or there would have been no trouble 
at all about the matter. And now, if you will leave 
arrangements in my hands, I fancy there will be a 
full chapel secured for to-morrow night. I’ve been 
talking to our boys, and, as they have a holiday to- 
morrow, they are only too eager to distribute bills, 
and to do all they can for the soldiers. So all you 
have to do to-night is to possess your soul in patience. 
Now, Ada, just take Miss Darrell to her room. I’m 
sure she will be quite ready for dinner. I know I 
am.” 

“ Oh ! but I ” Lois began ; but she was not 

70 


Attack. 

allowed to finish, for both the Sampsons interrupted 
with — 

‘‘We shan’t let you go to a hotel to remain for 
the night. That is, if you will allow us to entertain 
you.” This from the husband. 

“ You don’t intend leaving us, really ; I don’t think 
we should be justified in allowing that.” So spake 
the wife. 

And Lois said, “ I certainly meant to go to a hotel. 
I have had to do so in other places, of course. But 
you may depend upon this, that I shall be only too 
delighted to stay, if I do not inconvenience you.” 

And so Lois Darrell stayed, and saw the boys, and 
if Quelp did not take to her, they did. She gave 
them a “ little talkation,” as they termed it, at Mr. 
Sampson’s request, and gave them all a touch of 
scarlet fever, which developed in one or two of them 
to such an extent that in after years, when looking 
back — the one as an officer, the other as a chaplain 
— they were wont to declare that it was on that even- 
ing when Miss Darrell spoke to them they decided 
to serve the King of kings, and that their life-work 
should be among soldiers. 

Lois worried greatly that night. The old misan- 
thrope Quelp had said things which made her think. 

Was it wrong of her to be working amongst the 
soldiers? Was it in any way unmaidenly? Ought 
she, after all, to have remained quietly at home? 

She knew who her people were, if Mr. Quelp did 

71 


I 


The Bible Punchers. 


not. Lois Darrell’s position in society was far and 
away above Quelp’s, and if he only knew it, he had 
insulted a girl in whose veins flowed some of the 
best blood of which this glorious old England of ours 
could boast. Sprung from a race dating back to 
Thanes before the Conquest, she cared nothing at 
all for sneers and taunts, nor for the ‘‘ side ” which 
so many put on.” 

She had given up her home life, and by sheer force 
of will had so importuned friends in the medical pro- 
fession that she had entered a hospital, and had gone 
through a course of training as a nurse long before 
she ought to have done so from the standpoint of 
age. But that was only a step towards the work 
amongst the soldiers. She wanted to be able to nurse 
the wives and children of the men in the army when 
necessity arose. 

And then, after doing all she could for soldiers, 
whilst living at her own luxurious home, she had at 
last given up everything, and gone into a life of dis- 
comfort, and, in many cases, solitary rooms, to de- 
vote her life to their welfare. 

She had felt the cold shoulder when it was turned 
towards her over and over again. Even as a school- 
girl she had to bear that, for she had formed a Bible- 
class for soldiers even then. Ladies had forbidden 
their daughters to speak to her, and had refused to 
invite her into their houses, saying, “ They must 
draw the line at a girl like that.” She had been 
72 


Attack. 


soundly abused in Sunday-schools by teachers of her 
own sex, and had even known what it was to feel 
in some instances an outcast from her own set in 
society. 

And yet she had, generally speaking, until now, 
been treated chivalrously by men. She wondered 
now if Quelp were right. 

Lois Darrell was, in her way, ploughing up new 
ground — unbroken sods even, — and she found it 
very difficult at all times, but downright hard work 
very often. And to-night she worried almost unrea- 
sonably over the stabs she had received from one 
man's tongue. 

Was she doing any real good at all, she won- 
dered? Had she better go back into the old home 
life again, to the old comforts and the faces of par- 
ents and loved ones ? She was missed, and she knew 
it. 

Then her mind wandered away to the soldiers on 
march. How had the meeting gone at the second 
halting-place. Were the billets there better than 
those of the first halt ? 

After all, suppose those young Christians back- 
slid ! 

And then Lois fell on her knees and prayed. 
Prayed for each man of the Bible Punchers individ- 
ually, and felt more rested, when suddenly there 
flashed across her brain the words of those grand old 
promises — 


73 


The Bible Punchers. 

I will water it every moment/’ and, Be strong 
and of a good courage, for I, the Lord, am with 
thee.” 

And with those words ringing in her ears she fell 
asleep, and awakened next morning thoroughly con- 
vinced that she was really treading the path of duty, 
and doing as the King of kings would have her do. 


74 


CHAPTER IX. 


SURRENDER. 

There is a very old English saying, ** Do ye 
nexte thynge.” And Lois Darrell acted up to it. 
The Sampsons themselves were great strongholds, 
and somehow or other, although there was so little 
time in which to advertise the meeting, far and wide 
the bills announcing it were distributed. 

And the battery was met on its arrival by Chris- 
tian gentlemen, who willingly gave up a little of their 
time to the soldiers. 

It was a goodly sight that summer evening to see 
the crowd of people entering the chapel doors. Most 
of them had come out of sheer curiosity. It was 
such an uncommon kind of meeting, you know,'* 
as they said to one another. 

The redcoats from the barracks came down in 
goodly numbers ; the Sampsons had taken good care 
that they should not only be invited to attend, but 
had arranged that a hearty welcome and good seats 
should be given to them when they arrived. 

And as for the bluecoats, they were very warmly 
received. The fact was, that the Christian members 
75 


The Bible Punchers. 


of the congregation had been put on their mettle that 
morning, Messrs. Sampson, Petersen, and Marshall 
having devoted several hours to paying various calls 
upon the members of several classes, and these 
formed a stalwart welcoming band of doorkeepers 
and sidesmen. 

The Sampson boys occupied a raised platform just 
under the pulpit, and sat holding their drums and 
fifes, and arrayed in their uniforms, looking tremen- 
dously important. They afforded immense amuse- 
ment to the service men, who wanted to know to 
what regiment the little chaps were attached. 

On the platform were one or two Anglican clergy- 
men, several Nonconformist ministers, Lois Darrell, 
]\Irs. Sampson, one or two other ladies, and, of 
course, the soldiers whom Lois had previously chosen 
as speakers. These were conducted to their seats as 
they came into the chapel, having been warned be- 
forehand that they were to do some of the talking. 

Everything went off splendidly. The boys played 
for a short time before the meeting commenced, led 
off the service itself with some sacred music, and 
used their instruments between the speeches. The 
organist and choir were in their places, and the sing- 
ing went with a swing. The chapel was full, gal- 
leries included, and the clergy and civilian speakers 
in good form. 

But the soldiers spoke better ; they simply carried 
the audience with them, and turned the meeting into 
76 


Surrender. 


a revival service. The vestry was soon filled with 
seekers after salvation, several of the Sampson boys 
being among the first to “ come out.’^ 

And then there occurred an event which became 
a nine-days' wonder. 

No one had noticed him enter, but there, right 
away at the back, old Mr. Quelp had been sitting 
from the very commencement of the first hymn, and 
his voice was now heard. It electrified that congre- 
gation. Heads were hastily turned in his direction; 
the trustees feared he was going to make some fuss, 
and began studying each other; and the church 
members, knowing what he was quite capable of 
doing, rather wondered whether so-and-so had not 
better go and quietly ask him to sit down. 

But the old man, in a sort of way he had, held his 
ground and forced a hearing. 

It was only last night,” he began, that a young 
lady called upon me asking for the use of this chapel 
for this meeting to-night. I am ashamed to say I 
rudely refused her request, and certainly insulted 
her. To Miss Darrell I owe my apologies, and I 
offer them to her now.” 

At the mention of her name the artillerymen be- 
gan to applaud. (Lois had most anxiously wished 
to keep in the background at this meeting, but had 
acceded at last to the general wish of the band of 
helpers that she should sit on the platform and speak. 
But she had also insisted upon this, that other ladies 
77 


The Bible Punchers. 


should sit there, too. ) And their applause was taken 
up by the redcoats and civilians, so that the old man’s 
voice was drowned for a time. 

Then he commenced anew : 

‘‘ You do well to clap, friends,” he said. I con- 
sider that in Miss Darrell we civilians, as well as you 
military men, have a true friend. For she has plainly 
shown us our duty to God and man. I have heard 
her speech to-night, and I can only say it has made 
a new man of me. And if any of you, my friends, 
who are soldiers of the Empire, will come down to 
our services or meetings, I will very gladly welcome 
you into my pew, and I believe I may speak for other 
seat-holders. One more word. I have been given 
to understand that the military men who have de- 
lighted our hearts with their speeches to-night were 
converted at their last station through the instru- 
mentality of a Soldiers’ Home. God bless it! We 
have no such thing here. But the sooner we arise 
and make one in this garrison town the better. And 
I shall only be too thankful to be allowed to assist 
in the starting of one.” 

How the men cheered as the old man sat down! 
Out of place, at such a meeting as this had become, 
it might have been. And yet it seemed the only 
thing they could do to relieve their feelings ; and the 
congregation of civilians joined them. This old 
misanthropic gentleman — who had been a stumbling- 
block to many, and many a time to the other trustees 

78 


Surrender. 

— was indeed become as a little child, and was lead- 
ing them. 

And then, when it was all over, and each artillery- 
man had been supplied with a list of meetings, etc., 
arranged for by Lois, at each halting-place, she went 
back with the Sampsons and spent half the night on 
her knees, praying for the new converts and her sol- 
diers, that they might be kept steadfast, immova- 
ble, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” 

And next morning she went back to the old station 
and to work, arranging what she could do to wel- 
come the advance party of the new battery which 
would arrive that night. 

At every halt the Bible Punchers were cared for. 
Lois had arranged it so. In every town at which the 
men were billeted for a night, some one, to whom 
she had written beforehand, met the battery on its 
arrival, and, for the love of Christ and Tommy At- 
kins, gave the men a welcome. It was impossible 
in all cases to arrange a special meeting, but there 
was in every place some sort of a meeting at which 
they were made to feel quite at home, some home- 
ly ” room into which the men could go, instead of 
spending the necessarily idle hours inside the public- 
house, or lounging about the streets. And this 
meant a very great deal of help to those men on 
march. 

Then they reached Misterford, and the troublous 
times began. There was no Soldiers’ Home, and no 
79 


The Bible Punchers. 

one who seemed anxious to help the men. Lois had 
her hands completely tied with the new battery, and 
the old was left, as far as any outward means were 
concerned, to its own devices. 

Meanwhile the men struggled on bravely, ar- 
ranged quiet little meetings amongst themselves, and 
got accustomed to their new surroundings. They 
wrote frequently to '' our lady,” but each letter she 
received seemed a little less cheerful than the 
last. 

Frazer was trying very hard, but he seemed from 
first to last thoroughly “ down on it.” 

His first epistle ran as follows: — 

'' Dear Miss Darrell : 

'' I now take the pleasure of writeing 
these few lines in answer to your letter which I re- 
ceived to-night. I was glad you did write, for I was 
just begining to feel very miserable, but letter 
cheered me up, if you only knew what I have to 
stand, I was nearly fallen back, back, the picture of 
the cross rises up before me, and I ask God to help 
me, and he does; those other 3 what decided for 
Christ that last time you was with us on the march 
is still alright, and sends their love, and so does Ser- 
gint Foss and all them other Bible Punchers, and we 
hope you are having good times at Fordham with 
the new Battery. Good-night, pray for us all. 

‘‘ From Driver Alick Frazer. 

80 


Surrender. 


‘‘ Give my love to those of our comrades at the 
old Home left behind ; I mean those in the Midland- 
shires, Sergint Bateson and Kirke and the rest.” 

Three weeks after Lois received the following let- 
ter from him, and she made up her mind something 
must be done. 

‘‘ Dear Miss Darrell : 

“ I write these few lines to let you 
know how I am getting on. Since I came here I 
have been very miserable. I began to trust myself to 
much. I left off praying till last Sunday. I started 
to drink beer. I went all to the bad till Sergint Foss 
spoke to me on Friday night. I was so miserable I 
did not know what to do. He said a few words to 
me, then prayed for God to help me. I made up my 
mind to trust God more full}^ and stop the drink. 
I did stop it. I have a lot of temptation since I 
came here. There’s no Soldiers’ Home, nor nothing, 
and the people about seems to think we aren’t fit to 
go nowhere else but to the Publics. It’s all my own 
fault, I know, for giveing way. I ought to have 
trusted to God, but I have suffered for it. I seem to 
be cheery enough, but in my heart I suffer more than 
I can stand. I often wish I was dead, and end my 
misery at once, but when those thoughts rise up I 
think where I would spend eternity. When I write 
these few lines it puts me in mind of what make 
6 8i 


The Bible Punchers. 


life worth living-, for it puts me in mind of Jesus 
on the cross. I hope God will have mercy on me. 
I know He will, if only I trust Him, He will forgive 
me. I know you will help me with your prayers and 
letters, as you have helped me before when I was 
sad ; every one seems to be down on me since I left 
Fordham. Oh, how I do wish there was a Home 
here as I could go to in the evenings. The Serjint- 
Major has takeing a spite against me, and I couldn’t 
stand his naggings no longer; he was always down 
on me, no matter what I do to try and please him. 
At last I got impudent, and he put me into cells. I 
am as far down as he can get me. Now I am write- 
ing this in the dark. I don’t know the date, but it is 
Sunday, and I have been on duty all day, so I 
couldn’t see Driver Dane, nor Bombardier Holt, but 
Serjint Foss sends his respects. Think of me in 
your prayers. I will have to stop now. 

“ From Driver Alick Frazer.” 

He just wants a kindly word or two from some 
one outside,” Lois said to herself, as she replaced the 
letter in its envelope, feeling almost as miserable as 
the writer was. ‘‘ What could be done for him? If 
only I could get him transferred where he could be 
out of the power of that Sergeant-Major.” 

And whilst she was wondering, into the Soldiers’ 
Home walked Dane and Holt. 

“ We simply had to come,” they explained; we 
82 


Surrender. 


got an all-night pass, and came by the first train we 
could, and we can get back again in plenty of time to- 
morrow morning/^ 

How the men rejoiced to see them once more and 
how those two talked ! 


83 


CHAPTER X. 


‘‘ THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME/^ 

V, 

It"s simply awful up there,” Dane said. If we 
could only get some one to take a bit of interest in 
us ! They seem to expect us to go to the devil, and 
they try hard to drive us to him. I went to a Serv- 
ice, you know, one night, and got put into a back 
seat and given no hymn-book, and everybody stared 
at me as if they expected I were going to be rowdy, 
and had wandered in, in a drunken fit. I couldn't 
stand it again. We’ve found a jolly little field a 
good way out with a haystack in it, and we get out 
there under the stack. It’s an old one, so they don’t 
want to thatch it, or anything, and we have the place 
to ourselves; and we get a rare good meeting, don’t 
we. Holt?” 

Then Plolt spoke. 

“ The few who get there do, but that poor lad 
Frazer never gets a chance; that old sergeant-major 
just keeps his nose to the grindstone all the time. 
If it hadn’t been for Sergeant Foss, I don’t know 
what he’d do; he’s looking ill now. It’ll break his 
heart in time, if something can’t be done.” 

84 


“ The Girl I left behind me.’ 


Then an idea struck Lois Darrell. 

What’s the name of the farmer,” she asked, 

who owns that haystack ? ” 

‘'I’ve no idea,” Dane replied; “but if you want 
to know. I’ll find out.” 

“ He’s a gentleman,” Holt broke in, “ whoever he 
is.” Holt was a son of Erin. “ For he’s passed us 
on horseback many times, and never turned us off, 
and he always gives us a cheery word.” 

“ You find out his name and address, and send it 
on to me as soon as ever you can,” Lois told them; 
and they promised they would. 

And then they both asked if they could see her 
in the little prayer-room alone, to which request Lois 
said, “ Yes, after the Bible-class.” 

Dane’s turn came first, and he came straight to 
the point at once. 

“ Look here, Miss Darrell, I’m a fool, I know ; 
but the thing is, I must just get out of the trouble 
I’ve brought upon myself in the old days. I want 
you to decide for me which of these ” — taking out 
of his pocket several girls’ photographs, and laying 
them on the table before her — “ I’ve got to marry, 
for I’m engaged to them all.” 

Lois looked what she felt, utterly amazed. The 
six photographs were of different individuals, who 
certainly belonged to diverse classes of society. 

“ I know I’m a knave,” Dane began again, “ but 
I can’t marry all, and I want to do what I can to 

85 


The Bible Punchers. 


redeem the past. I never thought much about it 
when I was here. I hadn’t much time for letter- 
writing, with the Home to come down to when I was 
off duty. But up there at Misterford, why, there’s 
none of that, and I began writing letters again, and 
then I saw what mischief I had been causing. I 
don’t know what to do about the matter at all. If 
you will only decide for me which one I must marry, 
I shall be satisfied to stand by your decision ; ” and 
Dane sighed. 

‘‘ But, of course, you know which one you love the 
best,” Lois said. 

** I don’t, on my honor. Miss Darrell ; I have just 
fooled away time flirting with them, and I never 
realized really to what those flirtations would lead. 
I really thought, indeed, that they were flirting too, 
until I found out from their letters that each looks 
upon herself as being engaged to me. They all live 
in different places, and none of them know one an- 
other. I want you to study the photos well, and de- 
cide for me.” 

Lois paused before replying, and silently asked 
for guidance. She saw Dane was terribly in earn- 
est, and that in some way he was doing the most 
honorable thing he could do, and that she must make 
the choice of one for him. 

‘‘ Can’t you pray over the matter yourself? ” she 
asked at last. He who holds us all in the hollow 
of His hand will help you to a decision.” 

86 


“ The Girl I left behind me.' 


‘‘ I have done so. Oh ! I have prayed until I have 
nearly gone off my senses with the thought of all 
my silly, idle flirtations, and the misery they may 
cause them.’^ 

Lois saw a glimmer of daylight in this speech, 
and used it to advantage. 

'' Which do you think would be most miserable 
if you gave her up?’' she asked. 

And without the least hesitation Dane selected one 
photo, and gave it into Lois’ hands. 

This one,” he answered. ‘‘ She is such a nice, 
quiet girl ; not a flirt ; a governess in a family. Now, 
I knew her before I became a soldier, and afterwards 
I was stationed in the same town in which the 
family lived. I met her one day walking out with 
her charges, and she recognized me and bowed. If 
she were by herself she always bowed just the same, 
and spoke to me, and we became great friends. 
After a time she left the station, and, as I had her 
address, I wrote to her, and I suppose my letters 
got more and more into the affectionate style. But 
I never thought she would take them seriously, and 
only found out she did so when I got her last letter, 
a day or two ago.” 

What about the others ? ” Lois queried. But 
I don’t think I need ask ; it seems to me this one you 
have just told me about is the one you care for more 
than those,” pointing to the photos on the table. 

Dane blushed a little. 

87 


The Bible Punchers. 


I believe I do, Miss Darrell/' he said. 

And I like her face better than any of them/' 
Lois told him. “ The others look to me as if they 
might not suffer so very much if you wrote and 
explained to them. For I should not wonder if one 
or two of them, at any rate, have been flirting with 
you. So after all you have decided for yourself." 

Dane laughed. 

No, Miss Darrell, I could never have chosen. 
I felt too despicably mean. It seems to me now such 
a base, mean thing altogether to play at love. It is 
too sacred a thing to treat like that. And I ought to 
have known it before. But as a man. Miss Dar- 
rell, I have never said one word to either of them 
that I should be ashamed for my sisters to overhear. 
I am glad, though, that you have chosen Doro- 
thy. And now I am going to write to her with a 
clear conscience ; she is a Christian, and I think that’s 
what made her not cut me when everybody else did." 

There was a knock at the door, and Holt entered. 

‘‘ I thought you had gone downstairs, Dane," he 
Said, '' or I would have waited a little." 

Dane smiled. 

“It’s all right. Holt. I am just going; only I 
haven’t thanked Miss Darrell for her advice;" and, 
gathering up the photos, he went. 

Then Holt began. 

“ It’s about my girl. Miss Darrell. She isn’t a 
Christian, and I’m troubled about her. I want her 
88 


“ The Girl I left behind me.’ 


to come down and hear you, and if you wouldn’t 
mind just writing to her a word now and then, I 
think it might help her. I have sent on all your let- 
ters for her to read, and she thinks if she could 
only see and talk to you, she could tell you all her 
troubles and difficulties. She can’t see how she’s 
to be saved without doing anything for herself, and 
I can’t make her see it either.” And Holt sighed. 

Lois didn’t speak; she saw there was still more 
to be said; and as Holt, although an Irishman, was 
rather slow of speech, she let him take his time. 

So when I knew I could get off to-day, I wrote 
to her and asked her to come too, and meet me here, 
so that I could introduce her, like, to you; and so 
she could come to the meeting to-night. She’s got 
an aunt living here, so she is staying all night ; and 
they said they’d wait about a bit, after the Bible- 
class was over, so as you could see her.” 

Then Lois said, Of course I will, and at once; 
I shall be very glad to know her, and will most cer- 
tainly write to her if she will care for me to do so.” 

So Holt went out and brought in “ his girl,” and 
her aunt, and introduced them with such an air of 
proprietorship that Lois could hardly help smiling. 

She was a very good-looking girl, too, and blushed 
so prettily that Lois Darrell felt, taken ” by her at 
once. 

I did so want to know you, miss,” she said when 
the aunt and her nephew-in-law-to-be had left them 
89 


The Bible Punchers. 


alone together. Those letters of yours to Tim 
seemed to help so much to keep him straight, and 
I wanted to thank you for them for myself, too, as 
they’ve helped me such a lot. But I’m not a Chris- 
tian, as my Tim will have told you. And I never 
felt I wanted to be, until he turned right round, after 
he come to the Home here ; and then he made me see 
as I was altogether wrong, but somehow he couldn’t 
get me to see how I was to come right.” 

Another silent prayer went up to the Author and 
Giver of wisdom, and the answer came to Lois very 
quickly, for, slowly and surely. Holt’s girl was led 
into the sunlight of God’s love; and, perhaps, of 
all those who were in the large hall of the Soldiers’ 
Home that night at the ordinary Sunday-evening 
service, none were happier than Bombardier Holt 
and his fiancee^ if we except Driver Dane. 


90 


CHAPTER XI. 


FALLEN BY THE WAY. 

The two artillerymen traveled back to Misterford 
through the night, and on Tuseday morning Lois 
heard from them, giving the address of the gentle- 
man on whose land the haystack stood, about which 
they had spoken. 

And then Lois Darrell sat down and wrote to 
him direct. She pleaded on behalf of the artillery- 
men at Misterford as she had rarely pleaded before ; 
and she told of the men as individuals, and man by 
man. 

Back came the answer by return of post. 

Eccleston Court, Misterford. 

“ Madam : 

“ Your letter has caused me much dis- 
tress. I have often noticed the artillerymen in my 
field, when riding that way, but they seemed quiet 
and sober, and I have not disturbed them. They 
had no pipes about, so I knew the rick of hay was in 
no danger. 

How I wish I had known before, why they were 

91 


The Bible Punchers. 


there! I am going this morning to look them up, 
and to see if we cannot arrange some sort of a Sol- 
diers’ Home for them in the town ; but this will take 
time, and meanwhile the soldiers shall have a room 
in our house, which we will do our utmost to make 
‘ homey ’ for them. 

As for Frazer, the Scotch lad, my heart bleeds 
for him. I will, if possible, pull him out of the 
depths into which he seems to have fallen. 

Thanking you for putting the work into my 
hands, 

Believe me to remain. 

Yours faithfully, 

Harold Colquhoun.*'^ 

Lois Darrell felt that the problem was solved, and 
that now all would be well. She had, of course, 
written to Frazer as soon as possible after his letter 
came, to cheer him, for she felt worried about the 
lad. There was no need for anxiety now, she 
thought. 

But two days later came another letter from Ec- 
cleston Court, telling sad news. After giving par- 
ticulars of his visit to the battery, the letter went 
on — 

‘‘ I found Frazer in hospital, down with low fever, 
and bad internal injuries following a kick from his 
horse. The lad appears to have no wish to get well. 
It seems the disgrace of the cells was more than he 
92 


Fallen by the Way. 

could bear. His crime was simply a military one, 
swearing under great provocation in the presence 
of the sergeant-major, who has been very hard on 
him ever since he joined the battery from all I can 
gather. I am afraid he will not recover. If you 
could write immediately, he may be cheered a little. 
I have sent word to his mother. Nothing seems 
to rouse him; he is simply broken-hearted. I told 
him about the Home we hope to start. He sighed 
and said, ‘ It’s too late for me, but it may help to 
keep the others from falling.’ I will do all I can for 
him, please rest assured.” 

Then Lois got out Bradshaw, and studied the 
time-tables for a little while. She found she could 
just manage to get to Misterford and back, spend- 
ing one hour there, before the evening meeting at 
the Home; but she would have no time to spare if 
she meant to do so, as she must start almost immedi- 
ately; and she was in the train before most of the 
inhabitants of Fordham had eaten their breakfast. 
The postman delivered the morning letters very 
early, and this one had come by the first delivery. 

Frazer brightened up a little when he saw whom 
the hospital sergeant brought to his cot, but the im- 
provement was only temporary. 

It’s very good of you to come. Miss Darrell,” 
he said ; ** but I don’t somehow want to get well. I 
know I shall never stand against the temptations, and 
the sergeant-major. Mr. Colquhoun, he says as 
93 


The Bible Punchers. 


he’ll build a Home, if he can’t rent one for us ; and 
Driver Dane and Bombardier Holt say as how the 
room at the Court is just beautiful; but I know God 
has forgiven me now, and I’m going to be in one of 
His little rooms. I don’t deserve the mansion as Mr. 
Colquhoun read about in the Bible yesterday. I’m 
glad to go, miss, very! Only it’s my mother as I 
think about. She’ll miss me, only I don’t think I 
could face her after I’d been in prison.” 

Do you know, Frazer, I’m afraid you have been 
thinking that you had to keep God, instead of God 
keeping you,” Lois said. ‘‘ He could keep you stead- 
fast, without any Soldiers’ Home, if you had looked 
to Him and trusted more to Him than to yourself 
and outside help.” 

Frazer looked at her, as he said, I know, miss; 
but although I didn’t get out very often at Fordham, 
I knew there was always a “ Home ” to go to, and 
a welcome waiting for me, and if I’d been ever so 
down on it in barricks. I’d always get cheered up 
there; it was something to look forward to. Here 
there was nothing; it was just trouble in barricks, 
and no place to get rid of it anywhere, and God 
seemed a very long way off very often. I couldn’t 
get away into any quiet place to think even. I never 
got off, except for a very little time. The sergeant- 
major stopped my leave, so I couldn’t get to the 
field at Mr. Colquhoun’s. And I’m really glad to 
go Home now. Miss Darrell. I don’t mind how 
94 


Fallen by the Way. 

soon. I haven’t done an3^thing for the King at all, 
but let the guns get taken. But He’s forgiven me.” 
Here Frazer’s face brightened, and a gleam of real 
happiness seemed to come into it. 

'' And perhaps He will give you work to do up 
there,” Lois said. 

The lad smiled when he heard this, and just then 
the surgeon entered. 

He looked rather amazed at seeing Lois, but, as 
soon as he understood who she was, seemed de- 
lighted to meet her, although he thought his patient 
had talked enough for the present. 

He can’t last much longer, though,” he added in 
an aside to Lois. 

Good-by, Frazer,” Lois said. ** I really do 
think if the King calls you Home you will have work 
to do there.” 

The lad put out his hand and took hers. 

Miss Darrell, tell them to get some kind of a 
little place for us soldiers which we can call 
‘ Home ’ in the towns where we are sent to, will 
you? It means just everything to us baby Chris- 
tians, and it helps to keep the others from going 
, wrong. Do tell them just that, won’t you? . . .” 

Then Frazer’s voice was hushed, and he went 
Home. 

The surgeon and the hospital sergeant had ex- 
pected it, they said, but Lois was startled. 

‘‘ I hardly thought he would linger so long. Miss 

95 


The Bible Punchers. 


Darrell,” the surgeon said, as they went out of the 
ward together. It was a frightful kick he had 
from that horse; the internal injuries were very 
great. He could not possibly have pulled through 
without very great effort. And he didn’t want to 
get well. He must have suffered agonies at times, 
but he was very patient. He’s quite right about sol- 
diers’ homes; we have hundreds of men stationed 
here, going to the bad every day, and no one at- 
tempts to stop them. They are simply treated as if 
they were the scum of the earth, and being given a 
bad name, they are living up to it, and demoralizing 
the town. Mr. Colquhoun has taken the matter up 
now, and, I fancy, will carry his scheme through. 
I know we shall help him all we can.” 

And events proved that this was so, for within 
a very short time after Frazer’s death Lois received 
yet another letter from Eccleston Court. In it oc- 
curred the following passages — 

** I cannot tell you how busy I am now with the 
Soldiers’ Home. We can only be full of thankful- 
ness with regard to it. God does bless the men there. 
At least a hundred men were there last Thursday 
night. I know it was a special occasion, but they 
do turn up well. To-night we had a splendid num- 
ber. The soldiers are wonderfully changed, and the 
morale of the town improved already. . . . The 
marvel to me now is, that we did not see a Soldiers’ 
Home was needed long ago.” 

96 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 

The advent of the advance party of the battery 
which followed the Bible Punchers was not soon 
forgotten at Fordham railway station. The soldiers 
and railroad officials nearly came to blows, and as for 
the crowd of women and children whom the new 
artillerymen brought with them, the stationmaster 
very nearly told the truth, when he declared — 

Every one of the fellows must have three or four 
women and children belonging to him.*’ 

And the noise and crowd, at the generally quiet 
little station, was not at all acceptable to the head 
thereof. But the majority of the women folk seemed 
so utterly forlorn, and so upset altogether, and so 
helpless, that at last, bachelor as he was, he went up 
to one of them, who seemed quite overwhelmed with 
the noisy element around, and offered his assistance. 
He rather regretted his action a moment or so after, 
as several other women with their children imme- 
diately surrounded him, asking whether he would 
assist them as well. 

By degrees, from the babel of human tongues, he 

7 97 


The Bible Punchers. 

discovered that these forlorn mothers and bairns 
were not on the strength, that their fares had simply 
been paid to Fordham, and that they had no place 
at all into which they could go ! they wanted 
cheap lodgings, if he could recommend them to 
some. 

Unfortunately, Stationmaster Mitchell knew of 
none — ^but he did know Miss Darrell, of the Soldiers’ 
Home, and he sent them all straight down there. 
And so, within an hour or so of her return from the 
route march of the Bible Punchers, Lois Darrell 
knew she had to face the problem of finding homes 
for these homeless ones, who belonged, and yet who 
did not belong, to the new battery. 

But she went at the task with a will, although it 
was an unexpected one, and whilst the mothers and 
children were feeding in the Home, Lois was hunt- 
ing all over the place for rooms for the soldiers’ 
wives and bairns not on the strength. It was a very 
difficult undertaking, and it occupied her the whole 
of the remaining part of the day; but before tire 
time for the meeting at the Home arrived the prob- 
lem had been solved, and the new-comers were safely 
ensconced in other quarters. 

Then, after the meeting was over, Lois heard a 
few particulars of the battery’s misdemeanors. 

There were a goodly number of the Home men 
who had gleaned various bits of information about 
the new men since their arrival, and one or two 
98 


The Plan of Campaign. 

others who had been eye-witnesses of the scene when 
they detrained at the railway station ; and they were 
all quite willing to impart their knowledge to others. 

“ They are a rowdy lot/' said Bateson, a stalwart 
sergeant in a line regiment ; they smashed in the 
station windows as soon as they got out of the train. 
There will be damages to pay over that job, I know. 
What the sergeant can be thinking about I can’t 
imagine. I’d reduce them to something like order 
if I was him, or I’d know the reason why.” 

I expect he does know the reason,” struck in a 
young corporal of the rifles. From all accounts, 
there’s one man, a big gunner, at the bottom of all 
the mischief; he’s big enough and fierce enough to 
frighten even you, sergeant.” 

The sergeant shook his head, and the other man 
continued — 

“ They’ve eaten up everything in the public-house 
opposite the railway, and drunk any amount of 
liquor. I think we want a branch of the Home bar 
up there. But you never know what those artillery 
chaps will be up to,” said the rifleman. 

They of the green uniform are given, occasion- 
ally, to stand, in their own estimation, head and 
shoulders above the men who don the red and the 
blue. So it was in rather a superior tone of voice 
that Corporal Ryland ended his little speech. Be- 
sides, he had only just got his stripes, and he felt his 
new position as being one in authority. 

99 


LofC.^ 


The Bible Punchers. 


They won’t trouble us much here, I’m think- 
ing,” put in another N.C.O. 

‘‘ Not they,” struck in Sergeant Bateson. ‘‘ They 
aren’t the sort. That man, the gunner, Cordell they 
call him, he’s the ringleader of all the lot. He’d 
never ought to be anywhere but stuck on guard up 
at White’all yonder. That would be keepin’ ’im out 
of mischief. The new battery’s got a bad name, and 
from all I make out, it’s Cordell as ought to be 
blamed for it. He’s served eighteen years and more, 
and a gunner still! Cordell can just twist them 
chaps round him anyhow. It’s him we ought to get 
hold of.” 

‘‘If only we could.” 

The words came from a younger man — in fact, 
almost a boy. A quiet lad, very. One who never 
spoke at all at any of the meetings. An all-round, 
timid Christian from the outsiders’ standpoint; but 
those who knew him, and even those who could read 
faces, saw the genuine stuff of which heroes are made 
behind all the timidity. He never came to the front, 
though, and even his seat at the Home was in a cer- 
tain degree reserved for him. It was always the back 
seat in the room, or the one just inside the door. So 
that, when Kirke spoke out, as he was doing now, it 
was a great surprise to his comrades. 

The others turned and looked at him. They who 
knew him best said he was out and out for Christ up 
100 


The Plan of Campaign. 

in the barracks, not only down at the Home ; and they 
were quite ready to listen to all he had to say. 

But he had suddenly gone back to his silent way 
again. 

With a view to rousing him, Bateson asked, 
“ What’s that, Kirke? We must get hold of Cordell 
if only we could — did you say? I really don’t see 
how we’re to get at ’im at all, my lad.” 

Kirke was in Bateson’s company, and the ser- 
geant had a great liking for the little chap,” as he 
put it. But Kirke still remained silent, and the ser- 
geant went on — 

‘‘ I’m afraid we might just as well whistle to the 
wind as expect Cordell to come here.” 

‘‘ I don’t expect him to come,” Kirke spoke at last ; 

that’s where the mistake is. I think we ought to 
bring him. I don’t see why he shouldn’t be told 
about the games-room ; that ought to take with him, 
for I’ve heard he’s a grand hand at chess, and there 
are one or two of us Home fellows who are good 
at that too. Then there’s the library; I guess he’ll 
like to look at those last new books we’ve got here.” 

Kirke was speaking in his slow, steady tone of 
voice, which somehow seemed to carry weight with 
every word he uttered. 

‘‘ I thought, perhaps,” he went on, if one or two 
of us said we’d heard how good he was at chess, and 
asked him to come down and have a game with you, 
sergeant, and told him you were the champion here, 
lOI 


The Bible Punchers. 

he might like to come, just for the sake of beating 
you/' 

There was a roar of good-natured laughter at this ; 
the sergeant was a good chess-player, there was no 
denying that fact; and up to this time he was the 
crack player in the garrison. 

Kirke took no notice of the laugh, however, and 
never seemed to see the joke; he said it so calmly, 
too — “ just for the sake of beating you " — that 
Bateson was not in the least bit offended at the idea 
of defeat suggested ; he only said — 

“ Fd take good care of that, youngster ; he’d have 
to play a good many times before he’d checkmate me, 
I assure you. Let him play as well as he will, I guess 
I can ’old my own.” 

That’s just what I thought, sergeant; then, you 
see, he’d have to come down again and again ; for it 
would take a great chess-player to beat you on your 
own ground ; and, if I take the gunner right, he won’t 
rest content with defeat. I thought, if I could talk 
to him a bit, and say as Fd heard tell what a clever 
chap he was at chess, and how I reckoned you’d take 
a lot to beat you, as you’d been the swell player for 
.so long in these parts, perhaps the bait would take. 
Then, if he did rise to it, Fd ask him in to have some- 
thing at the bar, just at the time when you are about 
here, sergeant, and we could get on to the game right 
away. We’d all pray as you should win the game, 
sergeant. And then, when we’ve got him, I guess 
102 


The Plan of Campaign. 

we would get the whole battery in time. I don’t see 
why we shouldn’t. The Bible Punchers only began 
with one man, you know.” 

And then Kirke suddenly stopped speaking, and 
he was once more the timid, bashful lad, rather 
ashamed of himself for having spoken at all. ** As 
if they don’t know better than I do how to get that 
gunner down to the Home,” he thought. 

But his comrades were struck with the little chap’s 
scheme. It was the very thing,” they agreed ; and, 
within themselves, they thought, What a clever 
little chap it was, after all ! ” 

It was Lois Darrell’s voice which spoke now. 

That’s a grand idea of yours, Kirke,” she said ; 
“ and. Sergeant Bateson, I really think you might 
follow it up. Challenge him to a game with you 
here. I do not at all see why we should not win the 
new battery.” 

Why, we did not know you were in the room. 
Miss Darrell, or we should have consulted you about 
the plans,” Bateson said. 

** I came into the reading-room on purpose to see 
you all, and make plans,” Lois replied ; '' and I found 
you had forestalled me. And now I want all of you 
to promise you will work and pray and do your 
utmost that Cordell shall come down to the 
Home.” 

When Lois spoke in that tone of voice — and the 
men all knew the tone well — the soldiers heard the 
103 


The Bible Punchers. 


words as a command, and one to be obeyed. Each 
one of them felt, too, that Cordell would have to be 
very determined in his opposition, if one day he 
did not become a true member of the Home. 

I want your promise,’’ Lois went on, as the men 
turned towards her, waiting to hear more from her 
before any of them spoke. 

I have just heard that if we can enlist Cordell 
on the side of God and the right, we shall gain the 
whole battery. It has a bad name, as some of you 
said just now, and we must try and alter all that. 
Our work is to pray and work until the man who 
seems to lead most of the others is won for Christ. 
Kirke has faith; some of you have not. You must 
all work and pray in faith. I heard a man once ask 
the Lord to fill the chapel, and then, at the end of 
the prayer meeting, he told me, * The Lord Almighty 
could pack this place to overflowing, but I don’t be- 
lieve He will.’ The chapel was very empty, and I 
could not help assuring him it would ever remain 
so if all the members prayed as he did, with an un- 
believing heart.” 

The men laughed a little as Lois paused ; they felt 
the cap fitted, perhaps; but she continued — 

‘‘ We must work as well as pray, and in faith, 
nothing wavering. Don’t you remember that Jesus 
Himself could do no mighty works in one place He 
visited because of their unbelief? Now, I want your 
promise — and I want you to make it, remembering 
104 


The Plan of Campaign. 

that Christ Himself said, * Ask, and ye shall receive, 
that your joy may be full/ ’’ 

As Lois ceased speaking, the soldiers one by one 
held out their hands and gripped hers, giving their 
words, with their hands, that they would work and 
watch and pray for the salvation of the one man in 
the new battery who seemed to be the leader of all the 
bad elements within it — Gunner Cordell. 

I know Lm quite wrong, Miss Darrell,^’ Ser- 
geant Bateson said, as he gave his promise, but 
from all I can hear, I really do seem to doubt just 
a little whether Cordell is to be won. He seems so 
utterly bad. Fm afraid my faith is very small that 
our prayer or work will do any good in this case; 
but I know what I will do ” — and as he said these 
words his whole face brightened, and he looked quite 
a different man to the downcast soldier who had held 
out his hand a moment or so before — ‘‘ Fll pray for 
more faith, and the power to seize every opportunity 
which comes along, to work for the answer to our 
united prayers. And Fll pray, all I know how, to 
play well at chess, if ever I get the chance to get 
him to play against me. Fll go at the thing a bit 
more than I’ve ever done yet.'' 

''That’s right," Lois said; "and Kirke will do 
his part, I know." 

But Kirke promised nothing, only there was a 
look on his face, as he said good night, which showed 

105 


The Bible Punchers. 

that he meant to do more than pray for Cordell's 
salvation. 

Very late in the evening of the same day, the 
Home keeper arrived at Lois Darrell’s rooms. He 
must see Miss Darrell, and he must take her back 
to the Home as quickly as possible, he told the land- 
lady, after that irate lady had scolded him soundly 
for arousing her at that time of night. So Mrs. 
Blake toiled up the stairs again, and knocked at 
Lois’s door. 

It’s that man from the ’Ome, miss. ’E’s got to 
see you, ’e says. Them soldiers ’ill be the death of 
you some day. If I was your mar, now. I’d ’ave you 
’ome, w’ile you was alive, that I would.” 

Oh, Mrs. Blake, you are so careful about me. 
Tell Adams I will be down in a moment or two. I 
expect there’s something the matter,” Lois replied. 

Then w’y don’t the chaplain go, miss ? It’s you 
as they always comes to. They makes me mad. 
Mind you wrap up, miss ; to-night’s quite chilly like, 
though it is so ’ot in the daytime.” 

“ You shall wrap me up yourself, you dear old 
thing,” Lois told her, as she stepped out of the room 
dressed for the walk. Unfortunately, her rooms 
were not very near the Home, although the nearest 
she could get. 

But Mrs. Blake had brought out her Paisley 
shawl, and poor Lois, for fear of offending the old 
lady, allowed herself to be enfolded in it. It smelt 
io6 


The Plan of Campaign. 

strongly of camphor, for it had been just taken out 
from the recesses of a bottom drawer. 

“ I think you folks down at the ’Ome might man- 
age to get on at night by yourselves, mister. Miss 
Darrell’s pretty well done up w’en she does get ’ere 
of an evenin’ ; and it’s a bit ’ard upon ’er to dock ’er 
of ’er sleep,” were Mrs. Blake’s parting words, as 
she shut the door. 

“ I’m so sorry,” Adams began, but there’s a 
woman just come to the Home with two children — 
bits of babies they are, quite. She says she belongs 
to the new battery, and that old Mitchell told her to 
come down to the Home and ask for you. He’s an 
old silly, too ; he might have known you wouldn’t be 
there now. But she’s only come in by the last train, 
and I s’pose he didn’t know what to do with her. 
I’m a bit suspicious like, I am — because, if she be- 
longs to that there battery, why couldn’t she have 
come with the others ? But my missus, she wouldn’t 
have it but that everything was all square and above 
board, and she has lighted the kitchen fire and got 
them in there, giving them something hot to drink — 
soup or milk ’tis, I believe. It’s a good job that I’ve 
got quick hearing, miss, for all the place was locked 
up, and the lights out, when they came. I didn’t like 
to come for you, Miss Darrell, but, poor thing, she 
does look bad, sure enough, and she cried so when 
we said you weren’t in. And my missus, she says, 
* You go off and fetch Miss Darrell, Jim ; she won’t 
107 


The Bible Punchers. 


mind coming, I know.’ And so I couldn’t just help 
myself. We’ve sent the boy off for the chaplain, but 
he’s so far away.” 

** You did quite right to come for me,” Lois told 
him; and when they reached the Home Lois saw 
Mrs. Adams had been justified in sending for her 
immediately. There was a look on the face of the 
stranger which told very plainly that very great care 
would be needed if Death were to be robbed of the 
prey upon which he had quite evidently set his mark. 


io8 


CHAPTER XIII. 


NOT ON THE STRENGTH. 

When Lois reached the Home, she found that the 
weary mother and the two babies, one about ten 
months, the other perhaps three years old, looked 
quite neat and tidy and thrifty. Their clothes were 
well darned, and in one or two instances neatly 
patched, and the bairns had a nice bright look about 
them — they were beautiful children, too, and very 
clean. 

Lois sat down with a child on each knee, after 
taking off her things, and began giving rapid direc- 
tions in between her words of greeting to the mother. 

You must please get a cubicle ready, Mrs. 
Adams, at once,’’ she said ; “ we can’t send them 
away to-night, or, rather, so early as this in the 
morning — for it is past one o’clock.” 

Dear heart,” Mrs. Adams replied, I knew 
that’s what you’d say, and I’ve got ’Tilda doing it 
now.” 

And could you find me something to wrap these 
mites in, so that we could put them to bed ? ” Lois 
109 


The Bible Punchers. 


asked ; and added, smiling, You always do know 
the right thing to do, Mrs. Adams.’' 

Then she turned to hear the new-comer’s story, as 
Mrs. Adams left the room, ‘‘ to look for things,” she 
said. 

“ Now, I want you to tell me everything you 
care to,” Lois said, whilst I undress your dar- 
lings.” 

And then the stranger’s tongue was loosened, and 
she told her story. 

“ It’s like this, miss,” she began ; my ’usband, 
’e’s Driver Westall, in this battery, as ’as just come. 
’E’s the major’s servant, and, of course, isn’t with 
the advance party. I’m not on the strength either; 
we got married without waiting to get permission. 
It’s the major as ’as paid most of the women’s and 
children’s fares, miss. ’E’s a good man, is our 
major, that ’e is; although ’e don’t make much show 
of it, as our men say. There aren’t many of us on 
the strength, and when the Route came in, he told 
the men he wouldn’t ’ave no wives and children left 
be’ind. They was all to bring up their marriage 
lines, and ’e’d see that every married man should 
’ave ’is wife and children with ’im at the new sta- 
tion. They should all go on with the strength 
women and children in the advance party.” 

A fit of coughing came on just at this point, and 
Lois waited patiently until it was over, quietly un- 
dressing the baby meanwhile. 

no 


Not on the Strength. 

Don’t talk any more,” Lois said ; you can tell 
me another time.” 

‘‘ Ah ! but I must, miss. I must tell you how I 
came now, instead of with them.” 

Well, go on, then,” said Lois; only why did 
your husband not wait for permission to get mar- 
ried ? I should like to know that.” 

Well, miss, it were like this,” Mrs. Westall re- 
plied ; rd got a good situation w’en I took w’at they 
call ’ousemaid’s knee ; and the missus sent me off to 
the ’ospital. I was ill so long that she couldn’t wait, 
so she gave me a month’s wages instead of notice. 
Well, w’en I came out of ’ospital, I ’ad to go into 
lodgin’s, and the bit of money I’d saved up soon 
went, for I couldn’t get no place; and Bill and I’d 
kept company for years ; and ’e’d saved a bit, too, and 
so as I’d got pretty well discouraged. Bill said, * Let’s 
get married ; I’m pretty sure to get permission if I 
ask.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Well, miss, ’e was just goin’ 
on furlough in a few weeks’ time. I s’pose it was a 
silly thing to do, but we done it any’ow. We got 
the banns put up, and got married, and took ’is fur- 
lough for our ’oliday. W’en we come back, ’e found 
’e’d missed ’is chance; another man ’ad just got per- 
mission to get married w’ile we was away, and no 
more permits wasn’t given.” 

“ Oh ! what a pity ! ” Lois said. 

“ Ay, miss, it was. But I didn’t feel it at first. 
I’m a good ’and at the laundry, and I got a nice little 

III 


The Bible Punchers. 


bit of a cottage, with a bit of ground for dryin’, 
quite cheap, and took in washin’ for ladies — done by 
’and, you know — and I’d got a lodger or two, and 
did very well for a good time. When the Route 
came, I ’eard about the major wantin’ to see the mar- 
riage lines, so I took mine up; and I was to come 
along with the advance party same as them others. 
But I’d took a real bad cold some time back, and I’d 
got such a pain in my side every time I breathed, it 
seemed just like a knife cuttin’ me. And then baby 
got ill, and just w’en I’d ought to be at the station 
I’d got ’er too bad to be moved; she’d got convul- 
sions or somethin’ — any’ow, we got to the station 
after the train ’ad gone. And then I fairly cried. I 
’adn’t no money put by to pay my fare on, for, since 
I got this pain. I’d ’ad to give up my lodgers — I 
couldn’t do for them ; and I couldn’t do my washin’ 
either properly, and some’ow I was deep down in 
my ’eart real glad w’en the Route came. I thought 
I could start afresh, like, at Fordham. 

‘‘ And there I was left behind. Bill ’adn’t got the 
money either, and we didn’t know w’at to do. You 
see, the major ’adn’t given us money; ’e’d said we 
was to be at the station in time, and ’e’d taken the list 
of names and given them to one of the N.C.O.s, who 
was to get the tickets for us. So, of course, as I 
wasn’t there. I’d got no ticket. 

“ Well, I sat and cried most of the mornin’, and 
then I thought, if I could see the major, p’r’aps ’e’d 

II2 


Not on the Strength. 

’elp me out. So I just went up. Baby seemed bet- 
ter, so I left ’er and the boy with a neighbor, and 
went right up to barricks. Oh; ’e is good, miss, is 
our major. 'E’d only ’eard me for about a minute 
or so, w’en ’e says, says ’e, * All right, Mrs. Westall,* 
says 'e; ‘ you just take that down to the station, and 
they’ll send you on all right’ And ’e wrote a bit of 
something, and sealed it with ’is seal in an envelope, 
and told me to take it to the station-master. So I 
did, and ’e told me a train to come on by. 

And now I’m here, and I don’t a bit know w’at 
I’m goin’ to do. I feel that bad. And Bill won’t be 
on for a day or so yet. I couldn’t ask Major ’Unt 
to give me any money, and I couldn’t get to see Bill 
again. The major ’ad sent ’im on some errand away 
out of Misterford, and I feel so worried and 
bad.” 

‘‘ Well, now,” said Lois, I know exactly what 
you are going to do. Mrs. Adams and I are going 
to put you straight to bed, and you will have to stop 
there. We wdll see to the children. You are tired 
out, and will feel ever so much better in the morn- 
ing.” 

Mrs. Adams appeared just at this moment with 
some nightgowns, and Lois and she quickly had the 
babies ready for bed. Lois did not fail to notice 
either that Mrs. Adams showed signs of having 
had “ a real good cry ” during the time she had been 
absent. 

8 113 


The Bible Punchers. 


There was a sound of feet coming up the steps 
of the Home, and in a moment or so more in came 
the chaplain. Matilda announced that the cubicle 
was quite ready. So Lois took one baby, Matilda the 
other, and took them off to bed. They were half 
asleep already, and quite contentedly allowed them- 
selves to be tucked up, and snuggled down amongst 
the pillows. 

Lois found, on her return to the kitchen, the chap- 
lain and Adams there alone. Mrs. Adams had taken 
Mrs. Westall into another room. She looked down- 
right bad, miss,’’ Adams said ; and my missus 
thought you wouldn’t mind going up to ’er room 
right away.” 

And I intend waiting to take you into my care. 
Miss Darrell,” the chaplain added. “ Although it 
seems to me I shall have to wait some time. Adams 
did quite right to send for me. Even if I cannot do 
anything for Mrs. Westall, I intend preventing you 
from killing yourself. We must put the new-comers 
up here for a week or so, anyhow; that is certain. 
She looks too ill to be moved.” 

“ Pleurisy,” Lois said ; a sharp attack, too. And, 
poor thing, she’s been ill with it for some time. I 
knew it directly I heard the cough and saw her. I 
don’t quite see how we are going to manage, Mr. 
Sargent. It is awkward, isn’t it ? ” 

“ I suppose you will want to nurse her through 
it, Miss Darrell ? ” the chaplain queried, laughingly. 
114 


Not on the Strength. 

It would be like you to propose to nurse her your- 
self.” 

“ Decidedly,” Lois affirmed. Only, I must get 
off to meet the new battery in a day or two. So I 
shall not be able to undertake the case alone ; and Fm 
afraid you cannot be my deputy.” 

“ You shall not kill yourself here,” the chaplain 
said ; ** at any rate, whilst my wife and I are sta- 
tioned in the place. We must send in a nurse or 
something.” 

'' I can’t stay to argue,” Lois replied. No nurse 
can come to-night, that is certain; and I do not in- 
tend Mrs. Adams to knock herself up; that is cer- 
tain, too. And so, Mr. Sargent, I mean camping 
here to-night, and I want you to tell my landlady so, 
as you go back yourself.” 

“ And I mean waiting,” was the answer. 

Then Adams broke in, ‘‘ I’m glad you talk like 
that, sir. Miss Darrell will just kill herself for the 
soldiers, that she will ; we can’t stop her.” 

But Lois had gone from the kitchen, and joined 
Mrs. Adams in her room, where she found Mrs. 
Westall already in bed and asleep. 

I put on a linseed poultice, and Fve got a nice 
fire, and water, and all up for another, and I told 
Matilda she’d got to sleep in that cubicle with the 
babies. Miss Darrell. She came to me when you 
came downstairs, and I sent her straight back again. 
I could see what things were going to be like here. 

115 


The Bible Punchers. 


I got her off to sleep a few minutes ago, and Tm just 
going to look out a few things now. I don’t believe 
but what there’ll be some other little body here in 
the morning. She’s dead beat, and all this excite- 
ment will upset her. I think I’m right.” And Mrs. 
Adams got up from the chair on which she had been 
sitting, and went to the chest of drawers. 

She turned the key in the lock of the bottom 
drawer, and pulled it open. Then she knelt down 
beside it, and began taking out various little parcels 
wrapped in tissue paper. Presently the tears began 
to drop down upon those parcels, and Lois crossed 
the room and stood beside her. 

Mrs. Adams,” she said, I’m so sorry ” — for, 
intuitively, Lois read a tragedy hidden in that bottom 
drawer. 

But just at first no word was spoken by the little 
woman down there on her knees beside that open 
drawer, with her whole frame convulsed with emo- 
tion. 

Lois put her hand upon her shoulder. 

Mrs. Westall slept on calmly. The peace and 
quiet had brought that blessed sleep which she needed 
so much. 

Then Mrs. Adams looked up at Lois Darrell. “ I 
only had one baby, miss,” she said, as her hands 
fumbled with the string around the parcel she held. 

And God took it home? ” Lois queried. 

‘‘ No, Miss Darrell,” the other said, almost an- 

n6 


Not on the Strength. 

grily. “ There are things worse than death. If our 
Father had taken him, I should rejoice, not weep. 
He was a bonny baby, and a bonny lad ; and, as he 
was the only one, I suppose we made an idol of him. 
Anyhow, he got beyond us, and at seventeen years 
old he broke our hearts.” 

There was a dead silence then, broken only by the 
breathing of the soldier's wife on the bed; during 
which the string of the parcel was untied, and there 
fell out a child’s rattle from the folds of a long white 
baby’s robe. 

“ It’s his christening robe. Miss Darrell, and we 
had him christened by one of the Presidents of the 
Conference, and gave him Wesley for a name. I 
can well remember carrying him that day, and how 
proud his father and me felt when the president gave 
him back to us, and prayed for him to grow into a 
good, honorable Christian man, and follow in the 
steps of him we’d called him after.” 

There was a tiny pair of knitted wool boots, and 
a little hood, in the same paper in which the robe had 
been wrapped, and the mother’s hand held these up 
to Lois, while the tears fell faster and faster. Then 
she stooped, and, laying them carefully aside, untied 
other bundles, containing other long gowns, flannels, 
tiny shirts, and various liliputian articles of apparel. 
They lay in confusion around her at last, and Lois 
stooped to gather them up, folding them carefully 
one by one. 


The Bible Punchers. 


‘‘ I put the things by/^ the other continued ; 
‘‘ they’ve never been wanted again. I don’t often 
open the drawer, but when you asked me to get 
something for those babies upstairs, I thought of the 
things I’d got here — the night-things he wore as a 
little child — and I came and took them out. My 
God ! ” she said, almost as if uttering a prayer, I 
hope they won’t hurt the children. You don’t think. 
Miss Darrell, that wearing his things will make them 
grow like the wretch he became ? ” And she turned 
to Lois almost appealingly. 

“ Why, of course I don’t,” Lois said. ‘‘ Your boy 
was a dear little innocent darling when he wore 
them, and even if he were not, the clothes could not 
make those little ones upstairs wicked. You are just 
upset, Mrs. Adams. But I wish you could remem- 
ber just this — that God loves your boy as much — 
even more — than you do.” 

Oh ! I know — I know.” Then, in a different 
tone, she went on, “ He ran away. Miss Darrell, 
when he was seventeen years old, and we’ve never 
had a line from him since. That’s over twenty 
years ago. We heard he’d gone for a soldier, but 
we don’t know even that for certain.” 

Mrs. Westall began to stir, as if awaking, and 
Lois and Mrs. Adams were at the bedside in a mo- 
ment. 

You must not worry now, Mrs. Westall,” Lois 
said. “ Mrs. Adams knows exactly what to do, even 

ii8 


Not on the Strength. 

if the worst should happen. I should like to get this 
pleurisy business over first, though,’’ she said, in an 
undertone, for the care-taker’s wife to catch. Then, 
in a louder tone of voice, she went on, ** I know a 
good deal about nursing, and we will get a doctor 
here in the morning. Your babies are fast asleep, 
and so comfy, and Matilda is in the room with 
them.” 

Mrs. Westall seemed relieved, and another poul- 
tice was put on — when a knock came to the door. 
Mrs. Adams went outside, and in a moment re- 
turned, saying — 

The chaplain wants you to go back with him. 
Miss Darrell. He says as you must come now.” 

Tell him I can’t recognize his authority,” Lois 
said, ‘Hhat I’m a general here, and I obey no one 
lower in the service than the field-marshal.” 

And so Lois remained at her post, and before the 
work-a-day world dawned a wee mite of a baby boy 
had opened its eyes upon this old world, and his 
mother was doing very well, so Mrs. Adams told 
Matilda when she led the other two babies in to see 
the little stranger. 

‘‘ Dot boo eyes,” the boy exclaimed, trying to poke 
his fingers into them; whilst the ex-baby set up a 
loud shriek of delight, and, sitting down on the floor, 
patted her lap and called Me, me,” which they in- 
terpreted by placing the new baby there for a second 
or two. 


The Bible Punchers. 

Then Lois took them both away, and Matilda fol- 
lowed downstairs, saying — 

I wonder what’s going to happen next? I ex- 
pect aunt will want to keep that little one herself 
now.” 

And that was exactly what Mrs. Adams did want, 
for those babies had crept into her heart already. 

If the mother dies,” she told Lois, “ Til take to 
the wee mite myself, if the father will allow me to.” 

But Mrs. Westall was in such good hands that 
there was no question at all about her recovery. The 
doctor who had been brought informed her that she 
only had to lie still now and get well. And she 
obeyed his orders. 


120 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“ FORWARD ! ” 

The grass never had much chance to grow under 
Lois Darrell’s feet. Letters which came by that 
morning’s mail provided plenty of work, irrespec- 
tive of the ordinary everyday routine of meetings at 
the Home ; but she found time to write at his wife’s 
request to Westall, and also to visit the wives for 
whom she had found homes the day before ; and she 
heard a very great deal more about the power which 
Gunner Cordell wielded in the battery. She found 
too, that work of some kind must be put into these 
women’s hands. Lois generally worried her friends 
for orders for plain needle-work, in some cases also 
for fancy work too, and could help a good many in 
this way ; but at present she had very few orders on 
hand. Dressmaking, and even millinery, she had 
entrusted to soldiers’ wives, and there were a goodly 
number of ex-dressmakers and milliners ‘‘ off the 
strength ” in the new battery, so that at the end of 
the round of visits she devoted a little time to once 
more writing to various friends, and entreating them 
to favor her protegees with their needle-work. 


I2I 


The Bible Punchers. 


Not a man from the new battery came down to 
the Home that day, and it was a disappointed group 
of soldiers which met in the games-room that even- 
ing. They had tried their very best to make friends 
with the new men, and had failed, in their own esti- 
mation. 

They didn’t want no soldiers’ ’omes. A good 
deal of ’arm was done by them as went to such places. 
No! ’arf-an’-’arf was more in their line. Gunner 
Cordell would always stand treat for that. ’E didn’t 
go in for no ’omes, and wouldn’t stand no nonsense 
from those as did ” — and a great deal more, in the 
same strain, they told the Home men, who offered to 
treat them at the bar, with anything they liked in 
the non-alcoholic line. 

Lois, passing through the room, found the dis- 
couraged ones very ‘‘ down on it,” and gave them 
some cheery words, which acted upon them as a 
“ lift up.” 

** ‘ I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me,’ ” she said ; and they faced her at 
once. They had not known of her presence in the 
room until she spoke. 

“ Why, Miss Darrell, you always come in just 
when we seem as miserable as possible, to cheer us,” 
one of them said. 

And Lois replied, ‘‘ The battery comes to its last 
halt to-morrow, and will be here the day after. I 
am going to meet it, and give them a welcome tea- 
122 


“ Forward ! 


meeting, and I want you all to pray that some of the 
men may really come to the halt, and the right-about 
turn, before they enter Fordham. If I know you 
are at work here praying, I shall have my hands 
strengthened greatly. One thing more. Have faith 
in God. Do your utmost, and leave results to Him. 
I have written to some friends at the last halting- 
place, and they are working and praying too.'' 

Early the next morning Lois went up to see Mrs. 
Westall, whom the doctor declared to be going on 
well. The poultices Lois and Mrs. Adams had ap- 
plied had broken the pleurisy, and baby and its 
mother were doing splendidly. Mrs. Adams abso- 
lutely refused to have any nurse messing about," 
and insisted upon attending to them both herself, 
Lois putting in all her spare minutes as assistant. 

She wanted a direct message from his wife to take 
to Westall, and she ran in to obtain this on her way 
to the station, and caught the same train by which 
she had gone on to Combe before to arrange a tea 
for the Bible Punchers. 

This time Lois had no difficulties in the prelimin- 
ary arrangements. Mr. McDonald's time was en- 
tirely at her disposal, and the same staff of workers 
came forward to help, but they would hold the meet- 
ing in the town hall, where the tables were already 
being set up. The mayor, with her permission, 
would like to take the chair, and two young fellows 
— one a solicitor, the other a doctor — who were con- 
123 


The Bible Punchers. 


verted at the last meeting, wished to defray all ex- 
penses themselves. 

All you have to do, Miss Darrell, is to command ; 
we will obey,” they told her. 

And provided with invitation cards for tea and 
meeting, which had been printed in readiness, Lois 
and Mr. McDonald met the new battery as it un- 
limbered in the Market Square. 

The artillerymen seemed decidedly amazed at the 
welcome extended to them, but they accepted the 
invitation cards, looking rather curiously at them as 
they did so. 

The list of billets was obtained from the police- 
station, where Lois received a very warm welcome 
from the superintendent. 

‘‘ Fm downright glad to see you, Miss Darrell, 
and glad to do anything I can to help. Some of our 
men are coming to the meeting to-night, when 
theyTe off duty. That last meeting of yours stirred 
us all up, and the town expects great things to-night. 
But the publicans are up in arms against you. I 
should not be at all surprised if you don’t meet with 
a lot of opposition from them, and a bit of rowdyism 
at the hall. Our men think so, anyhow, and they’ll 
be on the spot, on duty, some of them. If there’s 
much of a row, I shall come down myself.” 

And when Mr. McDonald and Lois came to the 
first public-house where the men were quartered, 
they soon discovered the superintendent had been 
124 


“ Forward ! ** 

right in his conjectures, for they found the doors 
closed against them. 

''Not if I know it,” said the publican; "I lost 
a goodish bit last time by the meeting, and I don’t 
give her the chance this time to get the men away,” 
nodding his head in the direction of Lois, and ad- 
dressing Mr. McDonald. " Fair play is fair play. 
I’ve got to billet the men, and I’ve a great deal of 
bother about that little job, and if I can turn an 
honest penny out of the soldiers, why, I reckon it’s 
my duty to do it, for my own sake, as well as the 
missus and the kids. I reckon you’ll agree with me 
there, sir.” 

It was no use to argue with the man, and although 
they saw the bluecoats, they could not get a chance 
to speak to them. And it was the same at every 
public-house to which they went. Legally, public- 
houses are open to the public ; but, legally or illegally, 
they were shut to Lois and George McDonald. 
Everywhere they saw the men, but try as they could, 
they did not manage to give out a single invitation 
card, or to get one word with any of them. 

And then Lois thought of Mrs. Westall’s mes- 
sage. 

" I shall go straight to Major Hunt,” Lois said, 
" and tell him I want to see Westall. They cannot 
possibly refuse me admittance if I come with his 
order.” 

And so Lois Darrell went back to her hotel, and 

125 


The Bible Punchers. 

found Major Hunt’s card, to her utter amazement, 
on her table. 

He called about half an hour ago. Miss Darrell, 
and said he would call again in about an hour,” she 
was told. 

And so the difficulties began to vanish into thin 
air. Lois sighed a sigh of relief as she sat down 
to wait — for a few minutes in her busy life — 
idle. 

But the publicans had acted against their own in- 
terests, and had done a very foolish thing, as they 
found out to their cost in a few hours’ time. 

The major called again, and interrupted Lois in 
unpleasant reflections; it seemed too aggravating, 
when everything had been arranged so well, that they 
could not reach the men for whom the preparations 
had been made. Lois could hardly hope that the 
little invitation cards given to the men in the Market 
Square would be sufficient to bring many of them 
to the tea, and she really felt a little discouraged her- 
self, when Major Hunt was announced. 

He came forward at once and greeted her, apolo- 
gizing at the same time for calling. 

But I heard of all you had done for our women 
and children, and especially for my servant’s wife, 
and I wanted to thank you myself. I saw you when 
the guns were unlimbered in the square, and felt 
sure you were Miss Darrell. I was assured of the 
fact when I made inquiries, and I was informed, too, 
126 


“ Forward ! 

where you were staying, and I called to offer my as- 
sistance as well.’' 

It was very good of you,” Lois said ; I’m 
afraid I am defeated this time. Major Hunt, unless 
you can help me, for, after arranging for this tea, 
it seems we cannot get to the men to give them per- 
sonal invitations. Those little cards given out in the 
square may cause them, in a few instances, to come, 
but not in the numbers I want.” 

The major was a big man, and could not by any 
stretch of imagination be called a young officer ; but 
he was in the prime of life, and very enthusiastic 
about some things. He loved his profession, and 
his battery — and he had been proud of it until the 
advent of Gunner Cordell, who had been transferred 
to it from another. From that time the pride had 
steadily declined, just as steadily, in fact, as the bat- 
tery itself — its character was “bad;” it had been 
reduced in strength and guns — a disgrace which 
Major Hunt felt most keenly — and it seemed likely 
to go from bad to worse. Until to-day he had been 
utterly despairing about it. Now, looking down at 
Lois Darrell, he saw a glimmer of hope, and so he 
spoke quite cheerfully. 

“ I scarcely think that would be sufficient,” he 
said; “but I hear you have been round to the bil- 
lets?” 

“ Yes,” Lois replied, almost angrily, “ and was 
refused admittance at every place.” 

127 


The Bible Punchers. 

But the men saw you, Miss Darrell, and asked 
who you were. And when they were told, they 
recognized the name of the lady who had cared for 
their wives and children. That’s the worst feature 
of this battery. I believe nearly all the men are 
married, and very few with permission. They have 
to support the wives and children on their ordinary 
pay, and they cannot do it. And I suppose I’m a bit 
of a fool about such things; I help them by stealth 
all I can. I can’t bear to think of children suffering. 
But I will not give money. I find, if I do, it’s 
mostly spent in drink. You are to them the friend 
of their women-folk and bairns, and I know on very 
good authority that in one or two of the billets there 
have been some very strong words said to the pub- 
licans for shutting their doors against you, by the 
men of my battery. I think myself that the opposi- 
tion you met has done more good than a warm wel- 
come. And I do not think I need fear to -say there 
will not be a man missing from the hall to-night, ex- 
cept those on duty.” 

‘‘ You don’t mean that, really, do you, Major 
Hunt? ” Lois said. 

Indeed I do,” he replied. I know my men. 
They are a bad lot, unquestionably, but you have 
proved yourself their friend, and they recognize the 
fact. And the publicans have roused their sense of 
chivalry; a lady, their friend, has been insulted. 
They will not stay longer than they can help in the 
128 


“ Forward ! 


houses of the men who insulted her. You will see 
them all to-night. If I did not feel so sure of that, 
I would go and tell them about the tea myself, so 
that you should not have all the trouble for nothing, 
and because I am so angry myself at the treatment 
you have received. But the men will take the law 
into their own hands, and you will see with what re- 
sults.’^ 

Lois smiled. “ I don’t want a fight,” she said. 

‘‘ Not a bit of it,” he replied. And now. Miss 
Darrell, please understand I will help you all I can 
in your work except in absolutely religious work — 
Bible-classes, and things of that kind I can’t under- 
take. I simply cannot call a man up and put him in 
the guard-room if he has been at my Bible-class or 
meeting the same week. I am not saying one word 
which I do not mean. I tried it once too often ; ” 
and the major smiled. It was a fellowship meet- 
ing, and the most slatternly, unruly soldier in the 
battery spoke of me as, * Our dear brother Hunt.’ 
The fellow was in trouble the next day for neglected 
duty, and also flung a nod at me instead of the usual 
salute. Of course, punishment followed, and I don’t 
think I shall soon forget the sequel. He believed in 
the leveling-up and the leveling-down process of 
Christianity, and considered himself very badly 
served indeed. So no more open religious work for 
me. I simply cannot work in that way amongst 
the men — in any other way I am yours to command.” 

9 129 


The Bible Punchers. 


‘‘ I accept the commission/' she said. 

And the major went on speaking. If you can 
get hold of one man in this battery, I really think you 
will win all the others — a gunner named Cordell. 
He is about the worst type of soldier one could meet ; 
has been in the service for years, and remained just 
where he was when he enlisted all that time, never 
having advanced in his position one step. He is an 
educated man, I should say, although most decidedly 
not a gentleman by birth, which some of the men in 
the ranks are — as you must have discovered many 
times for yourself. He pretends to be an atheist, 
and frowns down any religious movement alto- 
gether. What he opposes never has a chance of get- 
ting on in the battery." 

“ Suppose he opposes the meeting to-night ? " Lois 
said ; and the major looked at her in surprise. 

'' Why, he cannot," he said ; don’t you know you 
have him already at Fordham? I sent him on with 
the advance party. And it is he, and not only the 
women and children, who have sent back word to us 
about your kindness to them all when they arrived. 
Oh no; I do not think he will oppose any of your 
attempts to do the battery good. But if he will not 
come himself — in fact, if he will not lead the way at 
Fordham — I am afraid the men will not come to 
any meetings at that station." 

I did not know he was in the advance party,” 
Lois said. 

130 


“ Forward ! 


“ But you heard of the rowdyism at the railway 
'station? he queried. 

Yes, and heard of him, too.’’ 

** I recognized his handiwork,” the major assured 
her ; “ but he is so careful that no evil deeds can 
really be brought home to him. He is a bad man — 
bad all through. It will take a very large allowance 
of the love of God to bring him back to the fold. 
And yet — he is passionately devoted to little chil- 
dren, to dogs, and to chess. Very few can beat him 
at that game. I don’t know, but sometimes I think 
it will be a little child who will lead him into the 
kingdom of heaven, if he ever should be led there at 
all. Sometimes I even despair of that.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


OFFICERS TO THE FRONT. 

There was a sound of the tramp of feet outside 
on the pavement — the unmistakable tread of military 
men when walking in company, and Major Hunt 
turned and looked towards the window. Then he 
said, quite eagerly — 

Oh, do come and see for yourself. Miss Darrell, 
how the men are accepting your invitation. There 
they go. I must say they intend to get to the town 
hall in plenty of time. Just watch that publican's 
face; it is a study. Several of the men have just 
come out of his house, and they are making a bee- 
line for the town hall, right in his very sight." 

By this time Lois \vas standing at the window 
herself, and saw the men coming down the street in 
twos and threes, and making straight for the town 
hall steps. Suddenly a clock chimed out the hour 
of six. The tea was at a quarter past. 

** Oh ! I had no idea it was so late," Major Hunt 
said. I am afraid I have kept you. Well, good- 
by, and very many thanks for all you have done and 
are doing for us; " and with those words he went. 

132 


Officers to the Front. 

Lois was over at the town hall herself in a few 
minutes. 

The tea was quite as good, in every sense of the 
word, as the one the Bible Punchers had enjoyed so 
greatly, and the tables were just as beautifully laid 
and decorated. When all was ready, the doors were 
flung open, and in came the men, all of them — every 
gunner and driver and N.C.O. of the battery, with 
the exception of the soldiers on duty in the town that 
night. There was a good deal of merriment at the 
way they had given them publicans one in the eye,’' 
as they expressed it. 

The sight almost took Lois by storm. Then she 
went round and shook hands with every one, finding 
out their names and delivering the messages from the 
wives and children; they seemed really glad to be 
there, and glad to shake her hand, too. 

With Westall she held rather a long conversation. 
He wanted particulars about his wife, and the new 
baby, and Lois gave him as good a description of 
that infant as she could, even stating the color of his 
hair and eyes. But she could not deliver all the mes- 
sages before the time for the meeting had arrived. 

After tea the N.C.O.s helped to clear away, and 
to Lois’ astonishment the sergeant-major called for 
a cheer for Miss Darrell and her friends, which was 
given with three times three. Then he carefully 
guarded the front seats, and kept two rows of chairs 
quite vacant. Lois remonstrated in vain ; he had his 

133 


The Bible Punchers. 

way absolutely. None of the men were missing 
when the meeting commenced with a few words of 
welcome from the mayor of the town. Then the rec- 
tor prayed; a hymn followed, and Lois commenced 
to speak. 

Suddenly there was a disturbance at the door. 
Every soldier rose to his feet, and there filed into the 
room all the officers of the battery in uniform. 
Right up to the front they walked, and sat down 
upon those vacant chairs ! 

Their coming was so utterly unexpected by Lois 
— the major had given no hint of such a thing — that 
at first she debated within herself whether to alter 
her subject a little. Only for a moment, though; 
then she went right on as if there had been no break 
in the address at all. She spoke of Christ as the 
Hero; and more than one officer, as he heard of Je- 
sus that night, felt thankful he had come. There was 
a complete silence in the hall as Lois’ voice rose and 
fell in eager, earnest tones, and the men felt that 
Christ was a living character — a Hero worthy of 
their worship — a perfect man as well as God, and 
they listened attentively to every word. One officer, 
a young lieutenant, furtively brushed away a tear- 
drop once or twice, and the rowdy element, which 
most certainly was in evidence in the hall, did not 
need the assistance of the police, who were also very 
strongly represented, to keep them in order. Once, 
there came a noisy shouting at the door, but the of- 

134 


Officers to the Front. 

fenders were quickly dispersed by one or two con- 
stables. 

Lois gave out the hymn herself at the close of her 
address, and the men sang with a will ; it was almost 
a relief, the tension had been so great. Then Major 
Hunt rose and asked permission to say a few words. 
Having received it, he spoke briefly and to the 
point : — 

He had thoroughly enjoyed the meeting, particu- 
larly Miss Darrell’s address. Christ had never 
seemed to him a grander character than that night ; 
in very truth He was the true Hero, and One worthy 
of all their service and hero worship. If his com- 
rades would only take to heart what they had heard 
that night and live up to it, they would be the better 
for it to all eternity. He had heard there was a 
Soldiers’ Home at the new station to which they 
were going. He felt himself that if there had been 
a Home at Misterford, the character of the battery 
might have been very different. He believed in 
soldiers’ homes ; they were of immense service to the 
army. He hoped the time would come when in every 
military station there would be a Soldiers’ Home, 
to which the men could go when off duty. As to the 
Home at Fordham, he hoped his comrades would 
rally around it. Miss Darrell had looked after 
their wives and children, and they knew it. 
They all knew, too, how, when Miss Darrell had 
tried to give them personal invitations to the meet- 
135 


The Bible Punchers. 


ing that night, the doors of the houses at which they 
were billeted had been closed against her. He was 
very glad they had resented that action. Let them 
show their gratitude by being better men, for that 
would prove to Miss Darrell that her efforts had not 
been in vain. He thanked the civilians for their very 
great kindness to him and his comrades, and he 
would like to call for three cheers for Miss Darrell 
and her friends. Perhaps at such a meeting as this 
that action would be out of place. So he could only 
say on behalf of himself and his battery, how 
greatly their kindness had been appreciated. 

Unfortunately, perhaps, and yet, looked at from 
another standpoint, not unfortunately either, the idea 
of another cheer took the men’s fancy, and directly 
the major ceased speaking the bluecoats took the 
matter into their own hands, and led off almost si- 
multaneously with the cheers and three times three 
for Miss Darrell and her friends, in which the mayor 
and the other officers, when they saw how things 
were going, joined most heartily. 

Then the mayor expressed his pleasure and that of 
the townsfolk at being able to entertain the battery. 
He hoped that, now they had commenced welcoming 
soldiers, they would be able to make similar arrange- 
ments for all army men who should spend a night in 
their town. Until Miss Darrell roused them to a 
sense of their responsibility, they had slept on, re- 
gardless of the numbers of soldiers who regularly 
136 


Officers to the Front. 


halted at their doors. He could safely promise that, 
whilst he was in office, at any rate, the military 
should not again suffer in this respect. 

During his speech Lois had been busy with paper 
and pencil, the result of which was read out by the 
rector, when he rose. 

We shall now close this meeting, my friends,’^ 
he said, “ but Miss Darrell wishes me to say she has 
several messages yet to deliver, and that she hopes 
none of the soldiers will feel obliged to go away 
until it is time for them to go back to their billets. 
Games have been provided in the committee-rooms, 
and the civilian friends will only be too glad to do 
all in their power to assist in entertaining. Also, 
I am to state that if any of our military friends care 
to go to the Temperance Hotel, the smoking and 
reading rooms are entirely at their disposal, as also 
are paper, pens, and ink, if they care to write any 
letters.’" 

Then he pronounced the benediction. 

The men rose immediately after, and remained 
standing, whilst, one by one, the officers came up 
and shook hands with Lois Darrell, and thanked her 
personally, both for her address and her kindness to 
the battery. They did not hurry, either, or do this 
merely as a matter of form, but stayed talking for 
some minutes. 

Last of them all came the young subaltern, who 
every now and then, whilst Lois was speaking, had 

137 


The Bible Punchers. 


seemed so deeply affected. She knew within her- 
self, from the first moment she saw him, that she 
must speak to him personally about the Saviour. 
How to find an opportunity ? That was the question, 
which he himself answered for her by saying — 
Thank you. Miss Darrell, for all you have said 
to-night. I have seen Christ as I have never seen 
Him before. I am afraid I am a bit of a coward, but 
if He will receive me as one of His followers, and 
give me the strength to fight for Him, I will.” 

Lois only replied, ‘ Him that cometh to Me I 
will in no wise cast out.’ ” There was no time for 
more, and the officers passed out of the hall. 

As the men sat down again, and did not seem in- 
clined to go, Lois gave out a hymn which they all 
knew, and, whilst they were singing it, came down 
from the platform, and began talking to some of 
them, delivering her messages from those at Ford- 
ham, and buttonholing the men at the same time, as 
at an old-fashioned prayer-meeting. 

It was then that the effects of the meeting were ap- 
parent. It became evident, too, that an after-meet- 
ing must be held, for some had been roused to a 
sense of sin by the sight they had had that evening of 
the Man Christ Jesus. Several civilians and police- 
men rejoiced in the knowledge of sins forgiven be- 
fore they left the town hall that evening. 

But amongst the soldiers themselves no results 
whatever were seen, except that it was very evident 

138 


Officers to the Front. 


that, as a whole, there was no indifference, although 
none came boldly out and took their stand for God 
and the right. With every bluecoated artilleryman 
to whom Lois spoke there seemed to be a stumbling- 
block, and that stumbling-block, although not openly 
admitted in some cases, was Gunner Cordell. One 
or two spoke openly about the matter, and, indeed, 
one man, called Charlie Holmes, said — 

“You had better go for Gunner Cordell, miss; 
we pretty well do as he wants us to. Fm not sure, 
but I feel pretty certain if he was to turn into a Bible 
Puncher, we should all follow.” 

So Major Hunt had said, and the man in the ranks 
told the same tale ! Lois Darrell felt, if prayer could 
save a man, irrespective of the will-power of the 
man himself, Cordell’s salvation would be secured. 
But the man’s will stood out against the answer to 
prayer. Lois knew that fact, and wondered how and 
when Cordell’s will would be broken. She felt in a 
hurry, and almost overlooked the truth of the say- 
ing, “ The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind 
exceeding small.” 

To pray, and work, and wait, leaving results to 
God, that was her appointed task. But she made 
up her mind to “do ye nexte thynge” which lay 
in her power to bring the gunner within the walls of 
the Soldiers’ Home. So she said good-night to the 
soldiers, and saw them depart with the Christian civ- 
ilians who were going with them back to their billets. 

139 


CHAPTER XVL 


THE “ LEADER ’’ IN THE REAR. 

Lois was up very early the next morning, and 
out in the Market Square almost before the artillery- 
men themselves. She had been unable to keep from 
worrying a little as to whether she had said the right 
words to the young officer who seemed to have heard 
the Gospel of Christ with gladness the night before. 
Sleep would not come for a long time. Lois wanted 
to do, not to sit still and wait; the very activity of 
the town clocks in the regularity of their striking 
only served to increase the feeling that she herself 
was idle. In the early morning, however, the brain, 
worn out with thinking and planning, got rest from 
the worry, and she fell asleep, whilst praying that, 
if she had not delivered the right message as yet, 
she might be given the right words and the oppor- 
tunity for speaking them on the morrow. 

There was very soon plenty of noise and confu- 
sion on that glorious summer’s morning in the old 
Market Square of the quaint, old-fashioned town. 
Lois stood and watched the drivers and gunners lim- 
bering up ; and the civilians, in twos and threes, com- 
140 


The “Leader” in the Rear. 


ing from all directions towards the guns, heard the 
officers giving orders, which were caught up imme- 
diately by the N.C.O.s and shouted out to the men. 
And she noticed, conspicuous amongst all, a young 
subaltern on horseback, and wondered how she could 
deliver any message to him, even if the order came 
from her Captain to do so. She had felt impelled 
to do some rather curious things for the soldiers, be- 
cause of the strength which seemed to be given to 
her by Almighty power to do them. But now, al- 
though by a sudden flash of inspiration she knew 
the words to say, how was she to say them? Lois’ 
heart thumped so that she almost wondered it was 
not audible. 

Up and down the young lieutenant rode, until the 
battery got into something like military order, when 
he wheeled to the left, and brought his horse to the 
halt just in front of Lois. Then he turned in his 
saddle, saw her, and, dismounting, saluted. Lois 
bowed, and he came towards her. Immediately Lois 
Darrell saw the opportunity for which she was look- 
ing put straight before her — and she used it. In one 
moment more they were shaking hands, and the mes- 
sage was given. 

‘‘ ‘ No man putting his hand to the plough and 
looking back is worthy of Me,’ ” she said. 

‘‘ I know% Miss Darrell,” he replied. “ It will be 
hard work, but I believe in those words of Christ, 
and I intend to be worthy of Him, and to go right 
141 


The Bible Punchers. 


on, not looking back. I wish you would allow me to 
come down to the Home at Fordham, and talk to me 
as you do to the men. Or may I write ? My name is 
Duncan Scarsdale.” 

Lois had only just time to give an affirmative an- 
swer, and young Scarsdale saluted and remounted 
his horse, for the commanding officer rode up at 
that moment with two or three other officers. The}'” 
saluted Lois, ran their eyes over the guns and men, 
and the order was given to start. In another mo- 
ment or so the battery had passed out of the town, 
and that same night the march came to an end at 
Fordham itself. 

But down at the Soldiers^ Home they waited for 
days for the men of the new battery to enter its 
doors, and, in spite of all the invitations they gave, 
and all their efforts to bring the new artillerymen to 
the Home, they waited in vain. True, the men were 
very busy; they intended to come as soon as they 
could, they said. But running through every excuse 
was this fact, that Gunner Cordell didn’t like sol- 
diers’ homes, and it was his pronounced opinions 
against them which kept the men back. Charlie 
Holmes admitted the fact again, as he had done 
once before, to Lois Darrell, when she found him, 
with his wife and little ones, in the rooms which she 
herself had procured that day, when the advance 
guard of the new battery came into Fordham. 

It’s like this, miss,” he said, “ him and me are 
142 


The “ Leader ” in the Rear. 

chums, and ’ave been for years. And w’en ’e says 
to some of us in barricks a night or so ago, ^ Now, 
look ’ere, you chaps,’ ’e says, ‘ that lady at the Sol- 
diers’ ’Ome ’as been a-lookin’ after your wives and 
little ’uns, and so I think you’d better show as ’ow 
you’re grateful, and go down there a bit.’ Well, 
w’en ’e says that, one o’ the chaps calls out, ^ That’s 
a good ’un, that is; we’re to go down there just for 
you to ’ave a good larf at us,’ ’e says. ‘ No, not if 
we knows it, Cordell.’ 

‘‘ And then the gunner, ’e says, ‘ I’m not larfin’ ; 
I just think you’d ought to go. She’s done a lot for 
this batt’ry, ’as that lady, and we ought to show as 
we appreciate it. The major and the orficers, they’ve 
been and took it into their ’eads to go to the ’Ome; 
they’ve led the way, now you just follow.” 

‘ That ain’t good enough for us,’ they says ; 
*you lead yourself, old man; we’ll follow you right 
enough.’ 

'' And then Gunner Cordell looks at us all, and ’e 
says, ' I’ve no missus or kids,’ says ’e ; * and I ’aven’t 
been to any tea-fights, so I’ve got nothing to thank 
the lady for. You ’ave, and my advice to you is to 
show it, and that pretty quick too.’ 

But you see, miss,” Holmes went on. Cordell 
’as always led us, and we don’t seem able either one 
of us to like to be the first one to go down to the 
’Ome. None on us cares to lead the way.” 

That was just how the matter stood. The men of 

143 


The Bible Punchers. 


the new battery had been so accustomed to follow 
in Cordell’s footsteps that they seemed to be abso- 
lutely unable to make any fresh advance in either 
the good or the bad direction of their own accord ; 
and so they remained in statu quo. The wives and 
children sang loudly the praises of Miss Darrell and 
the Home, where they had been so splendidly en- 
tertained on the day when they first came to Ford- 
ham. But their husbands and fathers were immo- 
vable. It seemed, indeed, as if Gunner Cordell must 
really be won for the kingdom of heaven himself 
before anything could be done for his comrades in 
the battery. And Lois Darrell felt so convinced of 
this that she told two of the old Bible Punchers — 
Dane and Holt — that very little work, if any, could 
be done amongst the new-comers until Cordell was 
converted himself, and that they must join in the 
union of Christian soldiers which was praying and 
working, watching and waiting, for this gunner’s 
salvation. 

Dane and Holt came down for a peep at the old 
Home, and to get words of advice from Miss Dar- 
rell on their own account ; and they heartily wished 
they could send the new battery back to the place 
whence it came, and that they and the rest of the 
Bible Punchers could come back to their old quarters. 

‘‘ They’ve left an awful name behind them at Mis- 
terford,” Holt said. 

And we have to suffer for it,” Dane put in. 

144 


The “ Leader” in the Rear. 


But they promised to join the ring of praying 
soldiers all the same ; and they kept their word. 

If the men did not come down, as Charlie Holmes 
had said, Major Hunt and his officers did, and made 
their own observations. They were delighted with 
the Home and all its arrangements, and did not hesi- 
tate to say so. 

Ungrateful wretches,” the major said, when 
Lois told him that not one of his battery had entered 
the doors of the Soldiers’ Home. But you will 
find it is as I sa}^ — Cordell the gunner must be won 
first. Why, he even, in many cases, leads the 
N.C.O.s. Don’t you despair. Miss Darrell; I have 
faith to believe you will win him yet. And that 
means the redemption of the battery from its bad 
name. For any help I personally can give you, com- 
mand my services, with that one reservation — no 
public Christian work for me, as I told you before.” 

Lois had one or two letters from Duncan Scars- 
dale, explaining why he had not come to the Home. 

, He was adjutant, and very, very busy ; he was afraid 
Miss Darrell would think he was backsliding, but, 
although he found it very hard to stand out and out 
on the side of his Hero, yet he thought he was in 
reality losing some of his cowardice, and he hoped 
to get off one evening soon for a call at the Home. 

And so one evening his hopes were realized. 
Young Scarsdale had chosen, without knowing it, 
the only night in the week when no meeting was 

lo 145 


The Bible Punchers. 


held at the Home, and Lois saw him in the little 
room ’’ which the Bible Punchers had loved so 
greatly. And he had his talk as he wanted to have 
it, as if he had been one of the men. 

“ It’s downright hard work to be a Christian,” he 
said, after the first greetings had passed, and he had 
expressed his admiration for the Home in general, 
and “ the little room ” in particular. Or, at least, 
I find it so. None of my people are even fashionable 
Christians; you know the kind I mean, don’t you? ” 

Then, as Lois nodded, he went on. I shall find 
myself cut off from them all. You see, I have not 
been trained in it; but there was a fellow at Wool- 
wich, one of the cadets, who was a Christian. He 
left his mark on us all. When the chaplain could not 
read prayers, we chose him to act in his place, for 
we all knew he was out and out. He went in as 
much as any of us did for games and athletics, but he 
never went inside a public-house or hotel for a drink 
when the matches or sports were over. We one and 
all respected and loved him, and, what is more, we 
all of us believed he was cut out to come to the front, 
very much so indeed, in the future. He was not in 
my year, of course, but he was my true friend, and it 
was he who first caused me to read the Bible. So I 
knew a good deal before that talk of yours, at our 
last halt, brought me to a decision which I had been 
too cowardly to take before. 

I never seemed, until that night, to look upon 
146 


The “ Leader ” in the Rear. 

Christ as Man as well as God, who had entered into 
all our troubles, who was tempted in all points as we 
are, and who would stand by us in every difficulty as 
a strong, helping Friend. It came upon me as a 
revelation, then, what a magnificent character He 
was, and what a Hero. I have been trying to live 
up to my ideal since I came here, but I cannot help 
others, somehow, as I want to do.” 

I don’t think any one ever does,” Lois remarked. 

“You do, don’t you?” he asked. And as she 
shook her head he seemed so amazed that she 
added — 

“ No one can ever help others as much as one 
wants to do. Their will so often stands in the way 
of their being helped, you know, and very often hin- 
ders, if nothing else does. Look at your battery, for 
instance. I want them all to come to the Home, and 
be to us something like the old battery was which has 
stepped into your Misterford quarters. We called 
them the Bible Punchers, and want the men in this 
battery to be Bible Punchers, too.” 

“ It’s that old gunner ! He is the hindrance ! ” the 
young fellow remarked. 

“ And we want him to be the first Bible Puncher 
in the new battery,” Lois went on ; “ but, although 
we want to help him, he refuses absolutely to have 
anything to do with us.” 

“ The more fool he,” the young officer said. “ But 
there’s my servant now; he’s gone sick, as they call 

147 


The Bible Punchers. 


it, since he came here, and is in hospital now. He’s 
a very decent sort of chap. His father must have 
been a money-lender — a Jew, I think; he looks a 
Jew anyhow — and, from what he says, he got caught 
in his own traps in the end. He lent money at an 
exorbitant rate, and when he wanted money — which 
evidently he did — he had to pay exorbitantly for it, 
and that broke him. This boy — he is only a boy 
really ” 

Lois smiled, for Duncan Scarsdale was only a 
boy himself, if appearances were to be trusted, as in 
this case they were. 

“ Don’t laugh at me. Miss Darrell,” he said. ‘‘ I 
dare say you think I’m only a boy, too; and so I 
am, I suppose, but he must be very much younger. 
And you yourself, excuse me, don’t look awfully old 
you know. But there’s that chap, now, has had to 
suffer for the sins of his father. He had been trained 
to idleness, really, although his father had articled 
him to something or other, I forgot what; but he’d 
given him a big screw for pocket-money, too, so he 
didn’t learn anything at all, you know. Then, when 
the crash came, he found he could do nothing at all 
properly, so he came to us. And now he’s really ill. 
I cannot help him in the least. I’ve been up to see 
him several times, but there is something on his 
mind, and the long and the short of it is this : I do 
wish you, Miss Darrell, could find time to go up and 
see him.” 


148 


The “ Leader ’’ in the Rear. 


Of course I will,” Lois said. But what is this 
something ? Do you know ? ” 

He told me,” Duncan replied, that his father, 
on his death-bed, made him promise that he would 
try his utmost to retrieve a wrong he himself had 
done. The old Jew had lost or spent everything be- 
fore he died, and never considered that his son would 
have to work for a living, and, consequently, would 
have neither time nor money to devote to such a 
task.” 

** What was the task ? ” Lois asked. 

** Why, he told me there were a lot of young Ox- 
ford undergrads with whom his father had rather 
shady dealings, and one young fellow called Dane 
backed a bill for a friend who had fallen into this 
Jew’s clutches.” 

Lois uttered an exclamation of amazement here, 
and the young lieutenant looked at her, and asked 
what was the matter. But Lois only told him to go 
on, and he obeyed her. 

The curious part of it all is this, that I know 
the fellow for whom Dane backed the bill. The 
affair made a fearful scandal at the time. The Jew 
knew that Dane’s father was in a very good position. 
The Danes were landed people, you know, but the 
property w^as not entailed. And that wily old scoun- 
drel simply traded on that bill, acted as if the signa- 
ture were Dane’s father’s, instead of the son’s — they 
had the same Christian name, and wrote very simi- 
149 


The Bible Punchers. 


lar hands, it appears — and he presented that bill for 
payment. Of course, old Dane swore it was a for- 
gery, that his son had forged his name, and, to save 
the family honor, met the bill by selling a lot of land ; 
turned the son — he was the only one — out-of-doors 
for good and all, and died soon after. 

‘‘ As for the son, they said he’d enlisted. And 
my friend, the Oxford fellow, for whom the bill had 
been backed, could never find a trace of his old chum. 
He told the Danes that no forgery had ever been in- 
tended ; that both he and young Frank Dane thought 
the ^ backing ’ was only a matter of form ; that his 
own father would have paid it rather than have any 
fuss; that he himself was an unsophisticated softy, 
and had hoped to meet the bill himself, and, failing 
that, would have gone to his father for the money, 
and got it, too, but that the Jew never gave him the 
chance. But old Dane would hear of no extenuating 
circumstances whatever — his son was a forger, and 
he died in that belief.” 

** Has your servant any papers about the case ? ” 
Lois asked, very eagerly. 

Why, yes. Miss Darrell, of course he has. In 
fact. I’ve seen them. I don’t know the Danes my- 
self, but I feel quite interested in the affair, through 
my friends the Newtons, for one of whom the bill 
was backed. They would be glad to find this young 
Dane, too, and to help him all they could ; you may 
depend upon that. Frank Dane was a careless, friv- 

150 


The “Leader” in the Rear. 


oloiis fellow, from all I can hear, but he was a down- 
right good-hearted one, and he got into trouble 
through helping a friend. You see, old Matthews, 
the Jew, told his son he knew positively that young 
Dane only thought the backing of the bill a matter of 
form. Newton himself quite intended to meet it. 
He was quite certain the idea of forgery never en- 
tered Dane’s head, or Newton’s either. But the Jew 
had been snubbed once or twice by Frank Dane, and 
he told his son that he was very glad to get his knife 
into that conceited young coxcomb. 

“ As a matter of fact, Dane, being a minor only, 
his signature was not worth the paper upon which 
it was written. The Jew knew that there was very 
little, if any, difference between the signature of 
Dane the father and Dane the son. He had been 
repulsed by Dane the father once previously, and 
hated the father almost more than he did the son. 
So he took his revenge, and ruined the family. But 
he himself went down the hill immediately. The 
money he had wrung from them proved his own 
curse, and he wrote out his confession before his 
death, and cursed his son with the burden of 
it.” 

“ I am thankful he did so curse him, as you call 
it,” Lois broke in at this point. 

“And why, may I ask?” Duncan Scarsdale 
queried, in utter astonishment. Lois, in her eager 
mood, seemed as if she could scarcely remain in the 

151 


The Bible Punchers. 


room. In fact, she was standing, as if she intended 
leaving him as sole occupier of “ the little room.” 

Lois stood with the door-knob in her hand, while 
she replied — 

“ I can hardly stop to tell you why; but, if you 
don’t mind, Mr. Scarsdale, I believe there is just 
time for me to go up to the hospital now and get 
those papers from your servant and mail them to- 
night. Then that burden will be off young Mat- 
thews’ mind.” 

Duncan had taken up his hat. ‘‘If you will allow 
me, I will accompany you. Miss Darrell,” he said. 

“ Why, of course,” Lois replied. “ I reckoned 
upon your assistance, and I will forgive you if you 
do think I am going out of my senses.” 

They were out of the Home by this time, and then 
Lois explained — 

“ I want Matthews’ papers to be posted to-night ; 
the mail leaves in just an hour, so there is no time to 
lose. Frank Dane was here himself in this Home 
only a short time ago. He came back from Mister- 
ford ” 

“ Ah, I begin to see daylight,” the young officer 
exclaimed. 

“ He is in the battery which replaced yours in that 
station. Here we call him the first of the Bible 
Punchers ; they used to call him in the battery Dare- 
devil Dane. I saw a letter from his mother only a 
short time ago, written in the most unforgiving 

152 


The “Leader” in the Rear. 


mood. She, and his sisters, too, quite believe he 
knowingly and wilfully forged his father’s name, 
and will not hold out to him the least sign of forgive- 
ness, thinking, I suppose, that his action led to the 
death of his father and the loss of all their property, 
and that he deserves to be treated with contempt. 
Now matters can be made right between them all, 
and Driver Matthews can get rid of his burden. Can 
you imagine how glad I am? ” 

They were hurrying up the hill, Lois dreadfully 
afraid they would not be in time ; but her fears were 
groundless, for that night Duncan Scarsdale posted 
his servant’s papers himself, after Lois had directed 
them, to Daredevil Dane’s mother. 

And Lois received, two days after, this reply — 

“31, West Street, Portsoe, 

“ August 28, 18 — 

“ Dear Miss Darrell : 

“ You cannot imagine how my mother wept 
with joy when your letter came, with its enclosures. 
She is unable to write and thank you herself for all 
you have done, as she is alternately crying and scold- 
^ing herself and us for believing the worst of poor 
Frank. 

‘‘ We have written to him, and asked him to come 
home, if he can get leave — if you can call this home. 
But I suppose, after all, home is to him where the 
mother lives. 


153 


The Bible Punchers. 


We don’t care if he does come in uniform now ; 
we shall only be too glad to see him, even if he is 
in full war-paint and feathers. Frank did not do 
that shameful thing — that is all we can feel, and we 
want to show him how angry we are with ourselves 
for believing he did, and to ask him for forgiveness. 
If only our father could know this ! 

** With deepest gratitude, 

“ Yours very sincerely, 

‘‘ Elsie Dane.” 

Dane’s letter was short and to the point. It came 
by a later mail on the same day. It ran — 

“ Dear Miss Darrell : 

How can I thank you ? I am going ‘ home * 
on two days’ leave to-night. 

‘‘ Very sincerely yours, 

‘‘ Frank Dane.” 

I don’t believe you could possibly have wanted 
to do more good to these people than you have done 
in this case,” Lois told Duncan Scarsdale when she 
showed him these two letters. 

I don’t believe so, either,” he replied ; “ but, 
after all, this Soldiers’ Home was at the bottom of 
all the good. Dane would never have been found 
without it. I pity those poor Bible Punchers at Mis- 
terford now, after being accustomed to such a Home 

154 


The “Leader"’ in the Rear. 


as this. I say, Miss Darrell, why don’t they start 
Homes at all the stations ? ” 

“ Lack of the necessary pounds, shillings, and 
pence,” Lois said. ‘‘ Also, in some cases, lack of 
interest in the soldiers.” 

** I’ll give something towards a new Home where 
there is not one now,” Duncan said. And he did it. 


155 


CHAPTER XVII. 


all's well. 

Gunner Westall's eldest son had grown very 
tired of his tame surroundings. He didn't like be- 
ing told to hush and be quiet all day long, and mum- 
sie wouldn't play with him at all. He wasn't allowed 
to run in and out of every room either, and so, es- 
caping Matilda's vigilant eye, he one day, soon after 
the arrival of his father's battery in the town, wan- 
dered out from the Soldiers' Home, where his mother 
was still staying with the new baby and his little sis- 
ter, into the street and a blissful state of freedom. 
He wanted to see father, and get him to fetch mum- 
sie away, and he set out as fast as his little fat legs 
could carry him up the hill, down which he had seen 
so many of the soldiers come. One or two were 
coming towards him now, but of these he took no 
notice whatever ; they weren't dressed like his father, 
and so the redcoats passed along unmolested, and 
the young hopeful toiled upwards, with panting 
breath, towards his goal. 

Suddenly he gave a scream of delight. On the 
other side of the road a big artilleryman was walk- 


All’s Well. 


ing, with head erect and shoulders back, swaggering 
along as if he were lord of creation, although walk- 
ing downhill. The baby crossed the road, and was 
hitting his legs with both tiny fists before the gunner 
noticed anything at all to impede his progress. Then 
he stopped short in sheer amazement. He was a 
huge man, standing six feet three in his stockings, 
and broad in proportion, with fierce black eyes and 
dark hair, and almost an evil expression on his face. 
But a glimmer of a smile crossed his features as he 
looked down upon the baby. 

Does oo know dada ? ” the mite demanded, in 
answer to the gunner’s Hallo, youngster ! ” 

Not that I know of, bairn,” the artilleryman re- 
plied. 

''Oh!” from the baby; " ’e’s dot a dacket like 
vis,” and the baby fingers touched the uniform very 
tenderly. " Fankie vants dada ; big man find dada.” 

And there followed such a piteous look of entreaty 
from the baby’s eyes that the gunner, instead of 
minding his own business, for once in his life 
minded that of a little child. He stooped and lifted 
the wee man to his shoulder, and began walking 
down the hill again; but there followed such a bat- 
tering on his cap of tiny hands that he halted once 
more. 

" I didn’t intend you to become a battering-ram, 
young man. What’s the matter now?” he de- 
manded. 


157 


The Bible Punchers. 


Baby’s forefinger pointed up the hill, and the puck- 
ered little face seemed on the verge of crying. 

“ Up, up,” the mite said, in such a hurt little voice 
that, to please him, the gunner turned and walked 
in the direction of the barracks. 

I can turn back again in a minute or so,” he 
thought. But the child thought otherwise, and, to 
humor him, the big fellow went almost all the way 
back to barracks. There began a loud wail, though, 
before he came within sight of the gates, and a pit- 
eous little voice cried, Fankie vants mumsie ; big 
man take Fankie to her.” 

“ What on earth am I to do with you, little 
bairn ? ” he asked, as he put him to the ground once 
more. The baby only shook his head, and then 
trotted off towards the hill up which they had come. 
It seemed a bit brutal, he thought, to leave the little 
thing alone, and so he stooped and caught hold of the 
tiny hand. 

“ Big man find mumsie; dada don,” the baby said, 
and confidingly trotted on whilst the big man ” 
himself felt bound to go whither he was led. 

And so at last the two came to the Soldiers’ Home. 

With a shriek of delight the mite pushed the door 
open, and dragged the gunner into the bar-room, 
where one or two redcoats were standing. 

Just at first the gunner thought he had entered an 
ordinary public-house, but, seeing marble tables 
about, and eatables on the counter, he changed his 

158 


All’s Well. 


opinion, and made up his mind he had come into a 
sort of refreshment place. Never for one moment 
did it enter his head that the place into which he had 
been brought by the little child was one of the sol- 
diers* homes he had abused with his tongue and 
avoided for so long. 

The baby, declaring “ mumsie’s up dere,’* van- 
ished behind the counter, having recognized Matilda 
there, and the gunner was left standing alone. So he 
walked up to the counter and asked for a pemiy bun 
and a cup of coffee. Matilda brought the daily paper 
to the little table to which the gunner had carried his 
cup and plate, and then went back to the counter. 

She was a stolid sort of girl in her way; the en- 
trance of Frankie with the artilleryman had not 
disturbed her in the least. The little man had become 
an immense favorite at the Home during his enforced 
sojourn there, and one or other of the soldiers often 
brought him into the bar-room. He always wanted 
cakie *’ when he passed that swing door. In the 
case of his new friend, the artilleryman, Frankie had 
been too anxious to get back to mumsie ” to think 
of anything else just then. Matilda had, of course, 
missed the little one, but she had grown tired of 
fruitless worrying about him; he so often gave her 
the slip, and was found in the safe keeping of one of 
the Home men. 

Mrs. Adams had been sitting with the new baby 
in her lap in mumsie’s room,’* and trying to calm 

159 


The Bible Punchers. 


down the jealousy of the ex-baby at the same time. 
Hence Frankie’s disappearance passed unnoticed. 
Mrs. Adams was down now, however, and on that 
young man’s vanishing from the sight of the gunner 
behind the counter he was caught by her to be put to 
bed. 

Frankie struggled bravely, and finally declared he 
must go and see big man,” and poured forth some 
unintelligible tale, in which the words big man ” 
and “ turn back kick ” were repeated so often that 
Mrs. Adams at length let him go back to Matilda for 
a good-night kiss, thinking that she would know all 
about it. 

Meanwhile the gunner was eating, drinking, and 
reading undisturbed; the few soldiers who were in 
when he entered the place had gone their own ways, 
and he had it all to himself, when there came through 
from the games-room Private Kirke. He had been 
greatly engrossed in watching Sergeant Bateson and 
another N.C.O. playing chess, and now wanted a cup 
of coffee. 

It was quite early in the evening; the meeting 
that night at the Home was for prayer and praise; 
one intended for Christians, and commenced rather 
later than usual, and Bateson was keeping his hand 
in at chess, preparing himself for the contest which 
he prayed might come off between himself and the 
gunner of the new battery. 

Kirke felt his heart jump into his mouth, as he 

i6o 


All’s Well. 


expressed it, for there, facing him, and looking in 
every way quite at home, sat the man whom he 
knew to be Gunner Cordell, the man for whose sal- 
vation so many of them had been praying. 

How he came there the young fellow did not 
know, and he did not know how to ask, either. 

Just at this moment Frankie’s struggles with Mrs. 
Adams ended in victory for that small man, and he 
re-entered the refreshment-room and ran straight 
across to the gunner’s side. 

*‘Dood night, big man,” he shouted, holding up his 
face to be kissed; Fankie’s doin’ to bed.” Then, 
suddenly seeing Kirke, of whom he was very fond, 
he went towards him, caught hold of his hand, and 
dragged him in his own peculiar fashion up to the 
artilleryman. Big man binged Fankie back ; 
Fankie losted, and couldn’t find dada,” he said, by 
way of an introduction. 

Kirke laughed, and asked him what he meant, 
whereupon Gunner Cordell explained matters, 
Frankie nodding his head approvingly. Then he 
kissed them both, ran back to the counter, and van- 
ished as he had done once before. 


II 


i6i 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


TACTICS. 

He^s a dear little fellow that/' Kirke remarked ; 
a great favorite, too. He often comes in and 
watches us at chess. Our champion player says he 
always plays better when Frankie’s eyes are on him.” 

Now, this was taking the bull by the horns with 
a vengeance, but Kirke felt it was now or never, for 
the gunner, having finished his viands, was making 
a move to go. He put down his stick, though, when 
Kirke mentioned a champion as being on the ground. 

‘‘ Chess ! Do you play that here ? ” he asked. I 
guess I’d like to meet the man who can beat me in 
a hurry. I reckon I can beat most folks at that. 
Who’s your champion? I don’t think he’d be that 
very long if I took to playing with him. I think 
you’d see that pretty quick, too.” 

“ Come and show us,” Kirke said. “ Some of us 
have heard as there was a better man than ours in 
the new battery. I guess you’re him. Your name’s 
Gunner Cordell, isn’t it ? ” 

‘‘ That’s my name,” the gunner assented, straight- 
162 


Tactics. 


ening himself, and standing with his cap in his hand 
in a half-hesitating sort of way. 

Kirke began to push matters. “ Our sergeant 
would take a lot of beating. I don’t guess, after 
all, as you’d manage to checkmate him.” 

That finished the affair. Cordell could not quite 
stand out against the implied insinuation. He looked 
at Kirke, who was — outwardly — standing utterly 
indifferent; inwardly praying ‘‘hard” that Cordell 
might enter the games-room and be beaten at the 
first game, so that he would come a second time to 
the Home. 

“ ril have a try, anyhow,” Cordell said. “ This 
seems a queerish sort of shop I’ve come into. I 
didn’t know refreshment places kept chess-boards as 
handy as all that. I’ve got an hour or so to spare, 
though, and if your champion’s inside I don’t mind 
beating him. What’s to pay? But I s’pose that’ll 
do afterwards. Lead on, chum.” 

Kirke felt as if he were walking on air as he led 
the way to the games-room ; Cordell followed. His 
bashfulness seemed entirely to disappear as he 
walked straight up to Sergeant Bateson (who had 
just put his opponent entirely to rout), utterly 
regardless of the astonishment of the soldiers 
around. 

“ Here’s Gunner Cordell, Sergeant Bateson. I 
told him as how our champion was inside — we got 
talking about chess, you know — and he’d like to 
163 


The Bible Punchers. 

beat you; he says he can beat most folks at the 
game.^^ 

Kirke's words came out quite stolidly, in the most 
indifferent tone of voice. To hear him, no one but 
those in the know would guess that this was the 
very thing for which they had all been praying. 

“ Delighted, I’m sure,” said the sergeant. 

And so the two sat down, one on each side of the 
chess-board, and the men crowded round them, try- 
ing to hide their jubilant faces. For it happened 
that most of the men in the games-room then were 
waiting for the meeting. 

How those soldiers prayed for the sergeant to 
win ! And how they wondered what combination of 
circumstances had brought Gunner Cordell into the 
Home. 

Their curiosity could not possibly be satisfied just 
now, so they just possessed their souls in patience, 
and talked away a good bit to Gunner Cordell about 
Sergeant Bateson being such a good one at chess, 
and how none of us have beaten him yet,” etc., etc. 
To all of which talk the “ two champions ” listened 
and smiled. 

‘‘ I’ve beaten a goodish few in my time,” the gun- 
ner said. 

And the sergeant declared he’d ** rather like to 
be beaten just for a change, but he reckoned he could 
beat most folks, too.” 

And so the game progressed, and the men watch- 
164 


Tactics. 


ing grew silent, and the gunner's face grew blacker 
and blacker with anger, for the sergeant was win- 
ning. 

Then Lois Darrell opened the door and came 
quietly into the room. The unusual silence was 
striking, and the noise of the door caused some of 
the men to look up from watching the players, and 
they who were sitting rose to greet her immediately. 
Bateson was so intent upon the game that he did not 
hear her enter, and Lois signalled to the others not 
to disturb him ; so she stood and looked on. 

The men tried to tell her, by gestures and looks, 
whom the sergeant was playing against, but she 
needed no telling. Her eye took in the whole scene 
— the group of Home men surrounding the players 
with anxious, eager faces; Bateson himself, as he 
moved his pieces with quick, determined manner; 
the gunner from the new battery, with the evil ex- 
pression well to the front, about which she had 
heard so much ; and Kirke, in his slow way as usual, 
well in the background of everybody. 

Lois Darrell knew that the answer to their prayers 
had been sent, and that Kirke’s plan of campaign 
had succeeded. She had yet to learn that the major’s 
words had been almost prophetic — in that Gunner 
Cordell had been led into the Home by the hand of 
a little child. 

Suddenly the sergeant called “ Checkmate,’’ and 
looked up. Then he was on his feet in a moment, 


The Bible Punchers. 


giving the customary salute, but the gunner did not 
move. Lois came forward and spoke to him, told 
him she was glad to see him, and that he must hope 
for better luck next time. But the only answer he 
vouchsafed to her was an insolent stare. Then, turn- 
ing to the sergeant, he said — 

I’ll play you till I beat you. It’s the first time 
I’ve been defeated, and I don’t like it.” 

''I hope you will,” said Bateson; “I do, really; 
it’s a downright pleasure to play with a man like 
you. You’ve given me harder work than I’ve had 
for months at this sort of thing.” 

“ Perhaps you will come in to-morrow night,” 
Lois said. We ‘shall always be glad to see 
you.” 

I certainly shall come, if I choose,” was the 
reply. ** I reckon if we pay for a thing we can have 
what we want without an invitation.” 

His manner, tone, and words were so absolutely 
insulting that Lois felt nonplussed. Not so the men. 
They were simply furious. ‘‘ How dared the fel- 
low I ” That was the thought with all of them, and 
they came towards him in a decidedly unfriendly 
fashion. But the sergeant spoke. 

I don’t think you know who you’re talking to,” 
he began. 

And the gunner interrupted. “ I don’t know, and 
I don’t care. Are you going to have another game 
to-night, or not? If not, I’ll come round same time 
1 66 


Tactics. 


to-morrow and play you. I can pay in advance, so^s 
to make sure of the table.” 

Several of the men drew a long breath — a sort 
of gasp, as if cold water had been poured down their 
backs without any previous warning. 

We don’t pay,” one man began. You don’t 

know where you are, I should ” 

What he was going to say no one knew, for Ser- 
geant Bateson put in his word. 

Gunner Cordell, I don’t think you do know who 
this lady is. When you do know, if you don’t apol- 
ogize for your conduct, you don’t come inside 
this Soldiers’ Home any more. This is Miss Dar- 
rell.” 

The effect was as if the gunner had been 
shocked ” by a galvanic battery. He sprang to 
his feet in a moment, and saluted as if to his own 
C.O. His face completely changed in expression as 
he faced them all. 

** Comrades,” he said, ** I give you my word as a 
man, I never knew until this moment into what place 
the baby led me. I had no idea I had entered the 
Soldiers’ Home. I have heard of Miss Darrell, and 
if you think I could willingly insult her, you don’t 
know me. Ask the chaps up there in my battery 
what we think of her. Why, she’s been a friend to 
every wife and kid of all of them. They’ve not been 
to the Home yet, but they’re coming, don’t yon fear. 
I’ve told them to come. I never intended to set foot 
167 


The Bible Punchers. 


in the place myself, not I ! But I withdrew my oppo- 
sition to it just because of what Miss Darrell had 
done, and that means a lot, I tell you ; as I dare say 
you know. Perhaps you know, too, what sort of a 
name our battery’s got, and that I get the credit for 
it. And now, perhaps, you can guess that I don’t 
feel as if I could apologize myself to Miss Darrell; 
maybe you’ll do it for me ” 

“ Not us,” was the almost unanimous shout; do 
it yourself, man. Miss Darrell isn’t like no one else; 
she’ll understand.” 

Then the gunner took their advice, and, turning 
to Lois, he said — 

Will you believe me, miss, that I would rather 
have cut off my right hand than insult the lady who 
has done so much for the battery! I heard about 
the tea, and before then about your care for them 
‘ off the strength.’ I guess now it was Westall’s 
little boy who led me here, but I had not the least 
suspicion; I thought this place was a refreshment 
one of some kind. And I’m downright mad with 
myself for my abominable behavior in return for 
your kindness. I only wish I could show you I am 
in real earnest.” 

Then Lois spoke very clearly and slowly. Gun- 
ner Cordell, I believe every word you have said, and 
you can make me forget all about it by helping us 
with the singing at our meeting to-night. I know 
you can sing. You look to me to have a splendid 
1 68 


' Tactics. 

bass voice, and we want badly just such a voice as 
you appear to have.'* 

Then to the men she said, I think it is only 
about five minutes to the time for the meeting to 
commence. I leave our guest with you all. Bring 
him with you ; " and with that she was gone. 

There was no way out of it. The gunner felt 
that the only way to really show he was genuinely 
sorry was to go up to the meeting with the others, 
and so, with the sergeant on one side of him and 
Private Kirke on the other. Gunner Cordell walked 
into the prayer-room, where the meeting was to be 
held that night ; and there was not a man there, ex- 
cepting himself, who was not a soldier of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

But of this fact the gunner was not aware. He 
felt himself a child again when the old tune, “ Top- 
lady," was pla3^ed on the harmonium, and his bass 
voice sounded forth bravely in “ Rock of Ages." 
He sang on, until suddenly the tears seemed to well 
up in his eyes, for the old scenes came up so vividly 
before him. He could see himself as a little tot, in 
his first suit, standing by his mother’s knee, learning 
that hymn, repeating it word for word after her, 
and saying the first verse as “ a s'prise " to his 
father in the evening. And he recalled how he had 
treasured the penny which that father had bestowed 
upon him, together with a pat on the head and a 
“ Well done, my son." 


169 


The Bible Punchers. 


He had saved up that penny for days and days, 
spending it over and over again in imagination, and 
then at last he had put it on the plate for the mis- 
sionary collection. 

And all the time these thoughts had been passing 
through his brain those comrades of his had been 
praying for his salvation deep down in their hearts, 
whilst they had been, to all outward appearance, 
singing most heartily. 

During the first prayer Cordell began to feel un- 
easy. The men, after sitting down to hear a few 
words from Lois, rose from their seats, turned 
round, and knelt down. His knees were too stiff 
for that, so he sat down and leaned forward, a very 
conspicuous figure indeed. 

“ Jesu, Lover of my soul,” 

was the next hymn, and this the gunner struggled 
through as well as he could, blinking hard, though, 
to keep the tears from coming. Why on earth 
had he been such a fool as to come up to that 
blessed meeting at all?” he asked himself, as he 
withdrew his handkerchief from the cuff of his sleeve 
and employed it vigorously. He felt he could not 
have sung another line, and his voice grew husky 
even before the end. 

He wondered if his father and mother were alive 
all this time. He had not seen or heard of them 
since he ran away for a soldier — he was afraid to 
think how many years ago. 

170 


Tactics. 


One of the redcoats prayed next, but very, very 
shortly, and he prayed for the unconverted members 
of the Home. 

Then came 

“ Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing,” 

and more home memories crowding into the gun- 
ner’s brain. This time he was a little chap at an old- 
fashioned prayer-meeting, and singing with all his 
heart — singing so loudly, in fact, that the old minis- 
ter said to him when the meeting closed — 

Well, my laddie, if you had a thousand tongues 
you would know how to use them; and I pray, my 
boy, that your voice may be continually singing for 
Jesus.” 

How had the minister’s prayer been answered? 
How had his mother’s prayer been answered? As 
a lad at that prayer-meeting he distinctly remem- 
bered feeling that God would hear and answer 
prayer. But events proved that those prayers, at 
any rate, were in vain. And the gunner roused him- 
self from his reverie at this point, and tried his ut- 
most to shake off the mood which was stealing over 
him. 

One moment,” — Lois Darrell spoke, and the 
men paused before kneeling — I want four or five 
of you to pray for about a minute or so each, not 
longer, and for one thing only — for the conversion 
of the unconverted here in this room to-night.” 

There were only about a score of soldiers present, 
171 


The Bible Punchers. 


and the}'’ were all close together, and were sitting 
almost in a semicircle, with Cordell in the center. 
Lois had one absolute rule for all meetings, invari- 
ably carried out — front seats to be filled up first; 

for,” she said, “ when men loiter about the back 
seats and scatter themselves in groups of ones and 
twos and threes, here, there, and everywhere, leav- 
ing rows and rows of vacant seats facing the speaker, 
it takes the heart out of the service.” Hence, when 
men came down early to a meeting, they would often 
find the last few rows of chairs turned tip on end, 
as one sees at restaurants when the tables are en- 
gaged. 

The Home men were so accustomed to this plan 
of action now that they came to the front of their 
own accord, with the single exception of Kirke, who 
always tried to get as much out of sight as possible. 

After Lois had spoken the men moved their chairs 
just a little, and so arranged them that practically 
Cordell was surrounded by a cordon of praying men. 
They knew, all of them, though he did not, that the 
prayer was to be for him, and him alone. And they 
prayed, perhaps, as in all their lives they had never 
prayed before. After two prayers Cordell got on 
his feet. He felt he should make a complete fool of 
himself if he stayed any longer. But the circle of 
praying men had gradually closed round him, and 
he was standing in their midst — with no way of 
escape, and his knees trembling. 

172 


Tactics. 


When five men had prayed, the gunner spoke. 

‘‘ Give me a pledge card, Miss Darrell,’’ he said. 

I’ll sign, and then I’ll go.” But Lois began to 
pray herself, instead of granting his request. And 
then Cordell had what, to all intents and purposes, 
was the baptism of fire. His shaking knees gave 
way at last, and he knelt in prayer himself. 

“ O God ! ” he said, “ whom I have insulted for 
years. Thou knowest it is more than a score of 
years since I bowed the knee to Thee, and since I 
looked into Thy Word. If Thou canst receive such 
a wretch as I, take away my heart of stone and for- 
give me now.” 

There was silence, only broken by the gunner’s 
sobs, for a few moments. Then Kirke’s voice was 
heard. 

** Hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling-place, and 
when Thou hearest. Lord, forgive,” he said. And 
the prayer was answered. 


T73 


CHAPTER XIX. 


VICTORY. 

Gunner Cordell never went in for half-meas- 
ures — he always boasted of that. ** Out and out ** 
was his line, he said ; and as he had been out and out 
for the devil, so now he meant to be out and out 
for Christ ; and when he looked up his own particu- 
lar cronies the night after his first visit to the Sol- 
diers^ Home, it was with one object, viz., to take 
them to that Home. 

He stood a giant amongst them, although they 
were not by any means small men — in fact, the men 
of the new battery were rather famous for their size 
and height, as well as for their wickedness. Gun- 
ner Cordell invited half a dozen of his greatest 
chums to go for a walk, and he received no refusals. 
So, with his followers, he walked out of barracks 
towards the town. Leaving the streets far behind 
them, the artillerymen walked right out into the 
country. Cordell was so wont to end his walks at 
the nearest public-house on a country road, and to 
stand drinks all round, that his comrades wondered 
what was up when he walked on, passing several as 

174 


Victory. 

if he never saw them at all. They began to feel 
‘‘ taken in/' and wondered, “ What had got Cordell 
this time?" 

The gunner might not have felt flattered, had he 
known that in great measure his popularity in the 
past had been due to those same free drinks with 
which he had been so liberal. 

They were a ‘‘ bit dry " and a bit tired," they 
said, and they did not fail to remind him that there 
were places on the road where they “ could sit down 
and have 'arf a pint." But the gunner only laughed, 
told them he’d brought them out for a walk to-night 
to view the landscape o’er; and although they kept 
on referring to thirst and fatigue. Gunner Cordell 
walked on, utterly oblivious, and they, hoping to 
turn in to a good thing at the end of this game," 
followed. 

At last, however, Cordell turned back, finding his 
aim had been achieved, and brought his really tired 
and thirsty party to a halt outside the door of the 
Soldiers’ Home — he wanted to tire them out and 
make them so dry ’’ that they would follow him 
without a murmur into the temperance bar, and he 
1 thought he had carried out his plan. 

“ I told you fellows," he said, ‘‘ that you ought 
to go down to this Home just out of sheer grati- 
tude, but I find not one of you took my advice. So 
I’m going to introduce you myself now. Fm thirsty, 
and you’ve all said you are, too. I’m going in 

175 


The Bible Punchers. 


to get something to drink, and I’ll stand drinks all 
round as usual.” 

‘‘Teetotal ones,” sneered one of the men; “no 
thanks, not for me. Not if I knows it! I’d rather 
go yonder ” — pointing to the public-house at the 
opposite corner of the road ; and Bombardier Harvey 
walked towards it. 

“ As you like,” said Gunner Cordell, “ but Fm 
not going to stand drinks of any other sort than tee- 
total again, to anybody. If-you go there, you’ll have 
to pay for yourself, and break with me.” 

And so saying he led the whole party — the pro- 
testing man as well — into the refreshment-room, 
where he got them to sit down at the marble tables, 
provided them all with something to eat, as well as 
to quench their thirst, paid for it himself, and 
watched them demolishing the same with intense 
satisfaction. 

“ How to proceed now ? ” was the next question. 
Suddenly he remembered the door by which Kirke 
had first come to him, and through which he had 
gone to the games-room. 

“ I’m going to have a game of chess,” he said. 
“ They’ve got a champion here, and I want to beat 
him. You’d better come and back me, all of you ” 
— and then he made for that door. The others fol- 
lowed like a flock of sheep. 

To say that the men who were occupying that 
games-room were astonished is not exactly adequate. 
176 


Victory. 

They were simply tongue-tied with sheer amaze- 
ment. 

Here were the men of the new battery with a 
vengeance I And, judging by the looks of them, they 
were ringleaders of mischief. Would there be a 
row? 

Kirke, as usual sitting by the door, was equal to 
the occasion. He was shaking in his shoes,’' as 
he said afterwards; but he had those new battery 
men playing at different harmless games before they 
had been in the room five minutes. Then the other 
men found their lost senses and began talking. Cor- 
dell looked round for his old chess opponent, Ser- 
geant Bateson, but the sergeant had not yet left bar- 
racks. 

“ There’s no chess for me to-night, then,” he said 
to his friends ; the champion is not here, and it’s 
no good my playing with any one else. But there’s 
a meeting on, and I’m going to it up in the hall 
here. I reckon you’d better come with me. You’ve 
followed me in here now; you can follow me later 
on up the stairs to hear Miss Darrell speak.” Then 
suddenly turning to Kirke, he went on, Is Miss 
Darrell anywhere about ? I want to sign the pledge 
if she is, in sight of these chaps. They don’t seem 
to take in the fact that I’ve changed sides, so I’ll 
sign the pledge in their presence.” 

I’ll go and tell Miss Darrell,” Kirke said, inter- 
rupting the silence which came upon the room, and 
12 177 


The Bible Punchers. 


he slipped away, whilst the men of the new battery 
looked at Gunner Cordell as if they thought him 
mad. 

After a minute or so one of the bluecoats spoke. 
It was Charlie Holmes, Cordell’s ‘‘ greatest chum,” 
the man who had told Lois Darrell on the last night 
of the route march that he believed if Gunner Cor- 
dell was to turn into a Bible Puncher all the rest 
would follow. 

“ I say, Cordell ! You’ve been doin’ us,” he said. 
“ You asked us to go for a walk, then w’en we 
were tired out you brought us in ’ere. Not but what 
we should ’ave come sometime without your ’elp, 
all the same. Then you want to take us up to the 
meetin’. You’re try in’ it on a bit too strong, you 
know ; I’m a good ’and at a lark myself, but I don’t 
believe in this — not me! You’re goin’ a bit beyond 
a joke, and I don’t like it. The lady ’ere at this 
’Ome ’as been very good to my missus and the 
kids, and they think a lot of ’er and the ’Ome, I can 
tell you. I’m not goin’ to stand by and see you mak- 
in’ game like this. It’s a bit too much.” 

Gunner Cordell was roused again now. “ Do you 
fellows think I’m joking ? ” he asked ; and then see- 
ing an expression on their faces which he saw meant 
‘‘ Yes,” he added: “ Charlie, old boy; I’m in deadly 
earnest, as much as ever I’ve been in all my life. 
Won’t you believe me? ” 

It was Charlie Holmes’ voice which answered — 
178 


Victory. 

‘‘We will believe wot we see. But, you see, 
you've always been leadin' us in quite — wot you 
might call — an oppersite direction. W’en we'd got 
to Fordham 'ere I know you wanted to drive us into 
this 'Ome, out of bloomin' gratitude, and all that. 
But we didn't quite see goin' and bein' larfed at by 
you after. And you didn't say you was cornin' 
down yourself, then. Now, w’en you was leadin' 
us 'ere, you might 'ave let us know as you’d been 
before. I think that’s just wot we all feel; and as 
you didn't give us notice, w'y, you can’t blame us 
for bein' a bit taken aback." 

Just then Lois Darrell passed into the room. Cor- 
dell rose from his seat at once, as did all the others, 
and he spoke right out. 

“ I've come down to-night, miss," he said, “ to 
sign the pledge in the presence of my chums in the 
battery. I want them to see where I take my stand. 
But they won't believe I'm in earnest." 

“ We do now," one or two of the artillerymen de- 
clared. 

“ Perhaps I didn't go about the thing in the right 
way, Charlie," said Cordell, turning to Holmes, 
“ but I'd been wondering how to get you to see me 
take the stand. I knew if I said we were going to 
the Home to-night, you’d think as I was only com- 
ing for a lark.” 

“We did that just now," said an artilleryman 
aside. 


179 


The Bible Punchers. 


Well, anyhow it’s done now, and I’m going to 
sign the pledge in front of you all, and, God help- 
ing me. I’ll keep it.” 

Charlie Holmes saw perfectly well now that his 
chum ‘‘ was in dead earnest,” and felt very sorry he 
had treated the matter as a jest. He himself knew 
what ought to be done by them all, now that the 
gunner had commenced new tactics, and he spoke 
out. 

“ Cordell does wot he says ’e’ll do, miss. He 
won’t go back from ’is word. And I’m goin’ to stand 
by him. I’ll sign the pledge, too. Ever since you’ve 
been lookin’ after my missus and the little ’uns, miss, 
things ’ave been different some’ow. And that talk 
as you give us at the last halt fairly cornered me, 
and a good many more of us. It’s ’im ” — touching 
Cordell on the arm — as we’ve been afraid of all 
along. None of us chaps felt strong enough to ’old 
out against ’is larfs and sneers. Now that ’e’s 
changed sides, you’ll get the lot of us down to the 
’Ome, as I said you would. We’d ’ave to ’ave given 
in and come in the end, I guess, Cordell or no Cor- 
dell, for the wives and kiddies ’ave kept on at us 
all the time about the ’Ome, and askin’ w’y we don’t 
go down to it.” 

“ I’m very glad,” Lois said, “ that you and your 
friend are going to stand shoulder to shoulder; but 
I want you to understand this, that neither of you 
can do without God’s help. You may keep the 
i8o 


Victory. 

pledge — but all your past sins are there unforgiven. 
You cannot blot them out, and at the last they will 
rise up against you and condemn you. They con- 
demn you now, in your own sight, when you are 
quietly able to think about yourselves and the life 
you are leading. What do you think they look like 
in the sight of God? Temperance is a very good 
thing, but it cannot save any one from the eternal 
consequences of sin. God’s love and forgiveness 
alone can do that. From what I hear, and from 
what you yourselves say, upon you few men rests 
most of the blame for your battery having the bad 
name it undoubtedly owns. And with God’s help 
you may redeem its character. Sign the pledge, by 
all means, but come out on the Lord’s side as well.” 

Then Lois placed the pledge cards on the table, 
Kirke brought pen and ink, and there and then Cor- 
dell and Charlie Holmes signed their names. 

Suddenly Bombardier Harvey stood up and took 
the pen. 

We’ll stick together,” he said ; “ weVe been 
shoulder to shoulder for so long, it won’t seem right 
to separate now. Come on, you others.” 

And the others did come on — every one of the 
new battery men whom the gunner brought to the 
Home that night followed Cordell’s lead, and signed 
the pledge, after which they all went up to the meet- 
ing. 

Then was gathered in the harvest, the seed for 
i8i 


The Bible Punchers. 


which had been sown in the town hall on the last 
night of the route march. 

It was the night when the fellowship meeting was 
generally held, and as one after another the Chris- 
tian soldiers testified what the Lord had done for 
them, the artillerymen grew quieter and quieter, 
until when Gunner Cordell rose to speak one or 
two of them were quietly weeping. The old, old 
hymns brought back old memories; memories over- 
laid by years of wickedness. They were sinful men 
now — but they had sung those hymns as little chil- 
dren in the Sunday school, and they remembered 
them. 

Comrades,’’ said Cordell, I want to tell you 
all I’ve surrendered; I’ve given in at last to the 
Lord: here at the Soldiers’ Home — God bless it, 
and send us more like it. I hated soldiers’ homes 
up to last week, you know that ; but you never knew 
the reason. Now I’ll tell you. I was reared in a 
Methodist home, which I ran away from when I was 
a lad of seventeen. I knew what the Gospel meant ; 
I knew what these meetings made for! — they made 
for righteousness, and I didn’t want to be righteous. 
I knew what I should hear if I did go to any meet- 
ings, so I kept clear. The meeting to-night is not 
strange to me. I have been to similar ones as a 
child over and over again. We called them class 
meetings, and my mother took me with her. They 
made me uncomfortable as a big lad, and I knew 
182 


Victory. 

they would make me uncomfortable again. I have 
not sinned in ignorance, as many of you have. It 
has been against the light all the time. I have had 
haunting me the memories of a mother’s and a fath- 
er’s prayers. They did their utmost for me, but I 
rebelled. I wanted my own way, and as I could not 
get that at home, I just ran away. 

‘‘ From that day to this I have never written one 
word to the dear old folks, and I have no idea 
where they are — whether dead or alive. And until 
last night I did not care either. Now I want to find 
them, or to get news about them anyhow. Maybe 
they are dead. I gave them trouble enough when at 
home ; very likely I have broken their hearts, too. 

Once away from home, comrades, I traveled to 
the devil at full speed. And I’ve kept it up. I’m 
a long-service man, as you know, and I’ve helped 
to bring to the devil many a young fellow who will 
curse my name to all eternity. I’ve been leading you 
chums of mine along the wrong road. Now, lads, 
come, let me lead you into the right road — let me 
have a chance to atone for the past. God has for- 
given me for Christ’s sake, and He will forgive 
you.” 

Cordell sat down, and Harvey stood up imme- 
diately. 

“ You’ve ’it the mark, comrade,” he said. I’ve 
had a prayin’ mother. I’d thought for a good long 
time now as ’ow ’er prayers would never be an- 

183 


The Bible Punchers. 


swered. She died prayin’ as ’ow Fd meet ’er up 
there. She’d talk about the many mansions, and 
say she’d stand at the door of one of them and 
watch for me, but Fve thought many a time as she’d 
watch in vain. The night of the last halt, though, 
set me thinkin’ about the old times again, and Fve 
been at the halt ever since. Now Fve made up my 
mind to give God what rightly belongs to Him — 
if He’ll take it.” Harvey cleared his throat and 
went on, ** I don’t deserve forgiveness — 1 know 
that — but my mother said as Jesus came to seek and 
to save that which was lost. I reckon Fm lost bad 
enough. So p’r’aps He’ll seek and save me.” 

Not a doubt of it, brother,’^ Sergeant Bateson 
said. This meeting and that of the night before had 
put new courage and new faith into his heart — he 
felt ready to do great things in God’s strength now. 

All this time there had been running through 
Charlie Holmes’ mind an old tune, and the memory 
of a Sunday school far away in a little village. He 
could almost see himself singing the hymn — 

“Around the throne of God in heaven 
Thousands of children stand.” 


He could scarcely prevent himself from humming 
it now — though how it had come into his head he 
could not imagine — ^until, all at once, when the last 
speaker spoke about his mother waiting at the door 
for her boy, he remembered his own little one — the 
184 


Victory. 

baby girl upon whom Death had laid his hand just 
as she had got to saying daddy.” She was one 
of those thousands around the throne,” and it 
rested with him whether he would ever see her 
again. Then he, too, rose. 

Fm not much at speaking,” he said ; ‘‘ but I’d 
like to say as I’ve got a little ’un up there, v/ho is 
waitin’ for me, and I’m going to meet her, God 
’elpin’ me, ‘ around the throne.’ ” 

There was a very great stillness as Charlie ceased, 
and then Lois Darrell prayed and closed the meeting. 

I should like to say just one or two words be- 
fore you go,” she said. “ I have closed rather ear- 
lier than usual, so there is plenty of time. I want 
all of you who have decided to be soldiers of the 
King of kings to remember that we are to fight the 
good fight of faith. It is not an easy thing to be a 
Christian, but the promise is sure. * I will up- 
hold thee with the right hand of My righteous- 
ness.’ ” 

Suddenly Lois ceased speaking, for there was a 
very disturbing sound at the door — and she recog- 
nized a child’s voice raised in protest. Then there 
came the voice of a woman insisting that he should 
go straight back to bed. Then the door was flung 
open with a crash, and a little child struggled from 
the restraining grasp of Mrs. Adams, and ran into 
the room. 

My big man is ’ere,” he said. Fankie will 

185 


The Bible Punchers. 


find ’im. Fankie did ’ear ’im sing. Fankie wants 
’ini to sing * Wound-fone.’ ” 

And the mite slowly walked from seat to seat, 
scanning the faces in each row. At last he paused, 
with a little shriek of delight, and wedged his way 
from man to man along one row, and came to a halt 
by Gunner Cordell’s side. 

Fankie ’as founded ’is big man,” he said, with 
intense delight. ‘‘ Pick Fankie up, big man, and 
sing ‘ Wound-fone.’ ” 

Cordell looked puzzled; he did not in the least 
understand what Frankie’s command meant, al- 
though he recognized Driver Westall’s little son. 

“Sing Fankie to sleep; sing ^Wound-fone,’” 
the little child persisted. 

But before he could ask for an explanation, Char- 
lie Holmes commenced, in a splendid tenor voice, 
the hymn which had been running through his brain 
all through that meeting — 

“ Around the throne of God in heaven 
Thousands of children stand, 

Children whose sins are all forgiven, 

A holy, happy band.” 


Frankie looked his amazement. His “ big man ” 
was not singing ; this other man was ; so he got down 
off the gunner’s knee and climbed on to Charlie’s, 
from which position he joined in the chorus. 

Charlie tried the next verse, but his voice shook, 
i86 


Victory. 

and then the soldiers took it up, and sang the hymn 
right through; and when it ended Cordell’s eyes 
were full of tears — his mother had sung him to sleep 
many and many a time with those words set to that 
tune. 

Frankie looked at him, got down off Charlie’s 
knee, and climbed on to that of his ‘‘ big man ” once 
more. 

“ Don’t cy, big man,” he said ; ** you wos solly 
you couldn’t sing it for Fankie, worn’t you? Never 
mind ; you’ll tly again soon.” 

And then there came a sound of a smothered 
sob at the door. Frankie’s head turned in that di- 
rection immediately, but Lois Darrell had gone to 
the door herself, having caught the sound too, and 
was standing by the side of Mrs. Adams when 
Frankie spoke. 

“ Big man ! See ! See ! ! ” he said. '' Missy Adams 
torted me ‘ Wound-fone.’ Missy Adams cyin’ 
’cause she can’t teach you.” 

And he climbed down once more, and crossing the 
room, had his two fat little arms round the old 
lady’s neck before any one could stop him. 

By this time Lois had brought Mrs. Adams into 
the room, and when Cordell turned to follow the 
child with his eyes the sight bewildered him. He 
rose from his seat, and looked again. Then he knew 
his eyes had not deceived him, and that his mother 
was standing there, with another boy’s arms around 

187 , 


The Bible Punchers. 

her neck, as she had stood many a day before, with 
his. 

Frankie got down to the ground again, and with 
Lois on one side of him and Mrs. Adams on the 
other, holding on tight to both, he marched straight 
towards the gunner. 

Big man,'' he said ; she torted Fankie ‘ Gorly, 
Gorly,' " and, touching the old lady’s dress, he went 
on, “ She singed it to anuzzer Fankie, when he was 
'er 'ittle baby boy. Teach big man. Missy Adams, 
to sing ‘ Wound-fone.' " 

But there was no need for teaching. Gunner Cor- 
dell, of the new battery, was weeping in his mother’s 
arms, and the soldiers were singing the Doxology 
before another five minutes had passed. 

But how did they recognize each other? ” Major 
Hunt asked, when Lois Darrell told him of Gun- 
ner Cordell's conversion and its sequel. 

He knew his mother‘s face,” Lois replied ; and 
she recognized him by that curious mark on his fore- 
head.” 

' And a little child shall lead them,' ” the major 
said reverently. ‘‘ Those men who with Cordell 
have taken their stand for God and the right, will 
soon be followed by others, and the battery will re- 
deem its good name.” 

And the major was right. Six months after- 
wards he wrote to a friend — 

1 88 


Victory. 

'' You would not know our battery now. The 
change in the men is simply marvelous. That Cor- 
dell (or Adams, as he is really surnamed) is the 
leader of a mission band, formed almost exclusively 
of men in the battery. They go out with the chap- 
lain to the villages, and are doing real good. . What 
is more to the purpose, they are leading Christian 
lives in barracks. Miss Darrell has gone to another 
station, but her work is not dead; and I thank God 
every day for that work, and for the existence of 
this Soldiers' Home. They have been our battery's 
salvation. The men are known as ‘‘ The Bible 
Punchers of the New Battery," to distinguish them 
from the Bible Punchers who preceded us here, and 
succeeded us at Misterford. And both batteries 
unite in saying, ‘ Thank God for the Soldiers' 
Home.' " 


THE END. 


189 



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